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^P San t)ap 

THE LAST MILLION. How They Invaded France — 
and England. 

ALL IN IT: K I CARRIES ON. 

PIP: A ROMANCE OF YOUTH. 

GETTING TOGETHER. 

THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND. 

SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLE- 
MAN. With frontispiece. 

A KNIGHT ON WHEELS. 

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Illustrated by Charles E. Brock. 

A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece. 

A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece. 

THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



THE LAST MILLION 



The Last Million 

How They Invaded France 
—and England 

BY 

IAN HAY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Ct? Il^itieri^itie T^tt?0 Cambridge 
1919 



^ 



^0 



^ 



COPYRIGHT, I9I9, BY IAN HAY BEITH 
ALL RIGHTS R£S£RV£D 



J.^c 



MAY >2 1919 



ICI.A515608 



TO 
THAT BORN FIGHTER 

AND 
MODERN CRUSADER 

THE AMERICAN DOUGHBOY 



CONTENTS 

A Word to the Dedicatee . . . . ix 

I. The Argonauts 1 

II. Ship's Company 10 

III. The Lower Deck 21 

IV. The Danger Zone 29 

V. Terra Incognita 36 

VI. Social Customs of the Islands ... 46 
VII. Three Musketeers in London ... 58 

VIII. The Promised Land 78 

IX. The Exiles 91 

X. S.O.S. to Dillpickle 104 

XI. The Line 125 

XII. Chasing Monotony 138 

XIII. An Excursion and an Alarum . . . 148 

XIV. The Forest of the Argonne . . . .164 
XV. The Eleventh Hour 174 

XVI. Gallia Victrls 193 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

[Note: The following is the substance of a little ''Welcome'^ 
which the author was requested to write to American sol- 
diers and sailors visiting England for the first time during 
the fateful days of 191S. It was distributed upon the trans- 
ports and in various American centres in England. Its 
purpose is to set forth some of our national peculiarities — 
and incidentally the author's Confession of Faith. It has 
no hearing upon the rest of the story, and may he skipped 
hy the reader without compunction.] 

I, A Word of Explanation 

I write this welcome to you American soldiers and 
sailors because I know America personally and therefore 
I know what the word '^ welcome" means. And I see right 
away from the start that it is going to be a difficult 
proposition for us over here to compete with America 
in that particular industry. However, we mean to try, 
and we hope to succeed. Anyway, we shall not fail from 
lack of good-will. 

Having bid you welcome to our shores, I am next 
going to ask you to remember just one thing. 

We are very, very short-handed at present. During 
the past four years the people of the British Isles have 
contributed to our common cause more than six million 
soldiers and sailors. On a basis of population, the purely 
British contribution to the forces of the British Empire 
should have been seventy-six per cent. The actual con- 
tribution has been eighty-four per cent; and when we 
come to casualties, not eighty-four but eighty-six per 



X A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

cent of the total have been borne by those two Uttle 
islands, Great Britain and Ireland, which form the 
cradle of our race. You can, therefore, imagine the strain 
upon our man-power. Every man up to the age of fifty 
is now Hable to be drafted. The rest of our male popula- 
tion — roughly five millions — are engaged night and 
day in such occupations as shipbuilding, coal-mining, 
mimition-making, and making two blades of corn grow 
where one grew before. They are assisted in every 
department, even in the war zone, by hundreds and 
thousands of devoted women. 

So we ask you to remember that the England which 
you see is not England as she was, and as she hopes to 
be again. You see England in overalls; all her pretty 
clothes are put away for the duration. Some day we 
hope once again to travel in trains where there is room 
to sit down; in motor omnibuses and trolley cars for 
which you have not to wait in line. We hope again to 
see our streets brightly Ut, our houses freshly painted, 
flower boxes glowing in every window, and fountains 
playing in Trafalgar Square. We hope to see the city 
once again crowded with traffic as thick as that on Fifth 
Avenue at Forty-second Street, and the uncanny silence 
of our present-day streets banished by the cheerful tiu*- 
moil of automobiles and taxis. And above all we hope to 
see the air-raid shelters gone, and the hundreds of crip- 
pled men in hospital blue no longer visible in our streets, 
and the long lines of motor ambulances, which assemble 
every evening outside the stations to meet the hospital 
trains, swept away forever. 

That is the old London — London as we would have 
you see it — London as we hope you will see it when 
you come back to us as holiday visitors. Meanwhile, we 
know you will make allowances for us. 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xi 

Also, you may not find us very hilarious. In some ways 
we are strangely cheerful. For instance, you will see little 
mourning worn in public. That is because, if black were 
worn by all those who were entitled to wear it, you would 
see httle else. Again, you will find our theatres packed 
night after night by a noisy, cheerful throng. But these 
are not idle people, nor are they the same people all the 
time. They are almost entirely hard- worked folks enjoy- 
ing a few days' vacation. The majority of them are sol- 
diers on leave from the Front. Few of them will be here 
next week; some of them will never see a play again. 
The play goes on and helps the audience to forget for a 
while, but it is a different audience every time. 

And you will hear little talk about the War. We 
prefer to talk of almost anything else. Probably you 
will understand why. There is hardly a house in this 
country which has not by this time made a personal 
contribution to our cause. In each of these houses 
one of two trials is being endured — bereavement, the 
lesser evil, or suspense, the greater. We cannot, there- 
fore, talk lightly of the War, and being determined not 
to talk anxiously about it, we compromise — we do not 
talk about it at all. 

We want you to know this. To know is to understand. 

II. First Impressions 

Meanwhile, let us ask for your impressions of our 
country. It is only fair that we should be allowed to do 
this, for you know what happens to visitors in the 
United States when the reporters get their hooks into 
them. 

So far as I have been able to gather, your impressions 
amount to something like this: 

There is no ice-water, no ice-cream, no soda-fountains, 



xii A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

no pie. It is hard to get the old familiar eats in our 
restaurants. 

Our cities are planned in such a way that it is impossi- 
ble to get to any place without a map and compass. 

Our traffic all keeps to the wrong side of the street. 

Our public buildings are too low. 

There are hardly any street-car lines in London. 

Our railroad cars are like boxes, and our locomotives 
are the smallest things on earth. 

Our weather is composed of samples. 

Our coinage system is a practical joke. 

Nobody, whether in street, train or tube, ever enters 
in conversation with you. If by any chance they do, they 
grouch all the time about the Government and the 
general management of the country. 

Let us take the eats and drinks first. There is no ice- 
water. I admit it. I am sorry, but there it is. There never 
was much, but now that ammonia is mostly comman- 
deered for munition work, there is less than ever. As a 
nation we do not miss it. In this country our difficulty 
is not to get cool, but to keep warm. Besides, it is pos- 
sible that our moist climate, and the absence of steam- 
heat in our houses, saves us from that parched feeling 
which I have so often experienced in the United States. 
Anyway, that familiar figure of American domestic life, 
the iceman, is unknown to us. We drink our water at 
ordinary temperature — what you would call tepid — 
and we keep our meat in a stone cellar instead of the 
ice chest. As for ice-cream and soda-fountains, we have 
never given ourselves over to them very much. As a 
nation, we are hot-food eaters — that is, when we can 
get anything to eat! We are Uving on strict war rations 
here, just as you are beginning to do in the States. So 
you must forgive our apparent want of hospitality. 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xiii 

III. The Land We live in 

Next, our cities. After your own straight, wide, 
methodically-numbered streets and avenues, London, 
Liverpool, Glasgow, and the rest must seem like a 
Chinese puzzle. I can only say in excuse that they have 
been there a very long time, and the people who started 
in to build them did not foresee that they would ever 
extend more than a few blocks. If Julius Caesar had 
known that London was ultimately going to cover an 
area of seven hundred square miles, and house a popula- 
tion of seven and a half milHons, I dare say he would 
have made a more methodical beginning. But Julius 
Caesar never visited America, and the science of town- 
planning was unknown to him. 

The narrow, winding streets of London are not suited 
to trolley-car lines. This fact has given us the unique 
London motor 'bus, driven with incredible skill, and 
gay with advertisements. There are not so many of 
these 'buses to-day as there might be, and such as 
there are are desperately full. But — c'est la guerre ! 
Hundreds of our motor 'buses are over in France 
now. You will meet them when you get there, doing 
their bit — hurrying reenforcements to some hard- 
pressed point, or running from the back areas to the 
railhead, conveying happy, muddy Tommies home on 
leave. 

And while we are discussing London, let me recom- 
mend you to make a point of getting acquainted with 
the London poHceman. He is a truly great man. Watch 
him directing the traffic down in the City, or where 
Wellington Street, on its way to Waterloo Bridge, 
crosses the Strand. He has no semaphore, no whistle; 
but simply extends an arm, or turns his back, and the 
traffic swings to right or left, or stops altogether. For- 



xiv A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

eign cities, even New York, are not ashamed to send 
their poUce to London to pick up hints on traffic control 
from the London ^'Bobby." Watch him handle an un- 
ruly crowd. He is unarmed, and though he carries a club, 
you seldom see it. If you get lost, ask him to direct you, 
for he carries a map of London inside his head. He is 
everybody's friend. By the way, if he wears a helmet 
he is one of the regular force. A flat cap is a sign of a 
"Special" — that is, a business man who is giving his 
spare time, by day or night, to take the place of those 
policemen who have joined the Colours. But, "Regular" 
or " Special," he is there to help you. 

There are no skyscrapers in England. The fact is, 
London is no place for skyscrapers. It was New York 
which set the fashion. That was because Manhattan 
Island, with the Hudson on one side and the East River 
on the other, is physically incapable of expansion, and 
so New York, being unable to spread out, shot upwards. 
Moreover, New York is built on solid rock — you ask 
the Subway contractors about that ! — while the orig- 
inal London was built on a marsh, and the marsh is 
there still. So it will not support structures like the 
Woolworth Building. 

Most of our national highways start from London. 
There is one, a Roman road, called WatKng Street, 
which starts from the Marble Arch and runs almost as 
straight as a rod from London to Chester, nearly two 
hundred miles; and it never changes its name after the 
first few miles, which are called the Edgware Road. 
Another, the Great North Road, runs from London to 
Edinburgh, and is four hundred miles long. One hundred 
years ago the mail coaches thundered along that road 
night and day, and highwaymen had their own particu- 
lar pitches where no other highwaymen dreamed of but- 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xv 

ting in. Five years ago that road was a running river 
of touring automobiles. Now, strings of grey military 
motor lorries rumble up and down its entire length. 
Perhaps you will ride on some of them. 

London, easy-going London, has her short cuts, too. 
That is where she differs from the methodical, rectangu- 
lar, convenient cities of the United States. She is full of 
cunning by-ways, and every street has a character of 
its own. The Strand was called "The Strand" a thousand 
years ago, because it was a strand — a strip of beach 
which ran alongside the Thames at the foot of a cliff 
(which has long since been smoothed and sloped out of 
existence) and was submerged each high tide. The Eng- 
lish fought a great battle with Danish pirates near by, 
and to-day the dead Danes sleep their last sleep in St. 
Clement Danes' Church, right in the middle of the 
Strand. 

Charing Cross, again, is the last of a great chain of 
such Crosses, stretching from London to Scotland, each 
a day's march from the next. They were set up at the 
end of the thirteenth century by King Edward the First 
of England, to commemorate the last journey of his 
beloved Queen — his Chere Rdne — who died while 
accompanying him upon a campaign against the Scots. 
At each stopping-place on his homeward journey the 
King erected one of these crosses to mark the spot where 
the Queen's body lay that night. Many have perished, 
but you can still trace some of them along the Great 
North Road — Neville's Cross, Waltham Cross, and 
finally Chere Rdne Cross, or Charing Cross. That 
strikes the imagination. So do Aldgate, Aldersgate, 
Moorgate, London Wall, and other streets which go 
back to the days when London really was a walled city. 

But a walk around London repays itself. There is 



xvi A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment — the veteran 
among all monuments of the world, except perhaps 
its sister in Central Park, New York. It was in existence 
fifteen hundred years before Christ, in the city of Helio- 
polis. It looked down upon the Palace and Court of 
Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria. After that it lay pros- 
trate in the sands of the Egyptian desert for another 
fifteen hundred years. It was finally presented to the 
British Government by the Khedive of Egypt. It was 
towed to England on a raft, and was nearly lost during 
a storm in the Bay of Biscay. Recently, the Zeppelins 
have tried dropping bombs on it, as you can see for 
yourself. But a mere bomb or two is nothing to a vete- 
ran with a constitution like that. 

In Warwickshire, around Stratford and the Forest of 
Arden, you will find yourself in Shakespeare's country. 
At Gerrard's Cross William Penn is buried. In the old 
days a watch was kept on the grave, as certain patriotic 
Americans considered that the proper place for Wilham 
Penn to be buried was Pennsylvania, and tried to give 
practical effect to this pious opinion. 

Scotland, if you happen to find yourself there, is en- 
tirely different from England. England is flat or undu- 
lating, and except in the manufacturing districts, is 
given up mainly to cornfields and pasture land. Scotland, 
especially in the north, is cut up into hills and glens. 
Not such hills as you possess in Colorado, or Nevada, 
or the Northwest. There is no Pike's Peak, no Shasta, 
no Rainier. The highest mountain in the British Isles — 
Ben Nevis — is only a little over four thousand feet 
high, but naturally Scotsmen think a good deal of it. 

Scotland is a great battle-ground. The Scot has always 
been fighting some one. There was perpetual warfare 
upon the border from the earliest days. The Romans, 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xvii 

who were business men, built a wall right across England 
from Newcastle to Carhsle, to keep the Scots out. They 
failed, as you will find out for yourself, when you study 
a list of British Cabinet Ministers ; but you can see parts 
of the wall still. Later, there were everlasting border 
raids, from one side or the other, maintained as a tradi- 
tion by the great families of that region — the Percys, 
the Douglases, the Maxwells, the ElUotts. Besides this, 
various Enghsh kings tried to conquer Scotland. Some- 
times one side would win a battle, sometimes the other, 
but no victory was lasting. At last, in 1707, the Act of 
Union was passed, and Scotland and England came 
under one central Government. Unfortunately, the 
Highlanders of the north were not consulted in the 
arrangement, and they put up two rebelHons of their 
own. Prince Charles Edward, the last of the Stuarts, 
actually invaded England, and got as far as Derby. He 
was defeated, but the rebellion smouldered on for years 
among the Highland glens. The chain of forts along the 
Caledonian Canal to-day — Fort George, Fort Augus- 
tus, Fort William, now peaceful holiday resorts — is a 
reminder of that time. But those days are all over now, 
and for nearly two centuries English and Scottish sol- 
diers have fought side by side all over the world. Ireland 
was united to England and Scotland by a similar Act of 
Union in 1800. This event, as you may possibly have 
heard, has provided a fruitful topic of conversation ever 
since. 

IV. Our Climate 

Then there is our weather. An Englishman never 
knows on going to work in the morning whether to take 
a palm-leaf hat, or a fur overcoat, or a diving-suit. The 
trouble is that our weather arrives too suddenly. We 



xviu A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

are an island in the middle of the ocean, and most of 
our weather comes in from the Atlantic, where there is 
no one to watch it. Our weather prophets simply have 
to take a chance. That is all. With you it is different. 
Your weather travels across a continent three thousand 
miles wide. You can see it coming, and telegraph to the 
next State what to expect. 

So, if you are spending a day^s leave in London, and 
walk out of blazing sunshine at one end of the street 
into a thunderstorm at the other — well, have a heart, 
and put it down to the War. We will try to fix things for 
you when peace comes. But we cannot promise. Anyway, 
in peace-time we can always wear rubbers. 

That is all about British weather. 

V. Our Transportation 

Then there are our railroads. These, like our boxed-in 
passenger coaches and little four-wheel freight cars, 
tickle you to death, I know. The compartment system is 
a national symptom. An Englishman loves one thing 
above all others, and that is to get a railway compart- 
ment to himself. Nobody knows why, but he does. 
Probably the craving arises from his inability to con- 
verse easily with strangers. That inability is passing 
away. I shall speak of it later. But the three-class sys- 
tem is a relic of antiquity. Fifty years ago there were 
three grades of comfort in British railroad traveUing. 
You could have your family horse-coach lashed upon an 
open railroad truck and attached to the train. You thus 
travelled in your own carriage, or chaise. I do not know 
what happened to the horses. This was the usual custom 
of the grand folk of those days. Or you could travel by 
ordinary railway coaches, without cushions or windows. 
Or you could pack yourself into an open freight truck. 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xix 

much as soldiers on the Western Front are packed to- 
day, and so reach your destination with other mer- 
chandise. 

That has all gone now. Practically the only differ- 
ence between first, second, and third class in these days 
is a difference of price — which means elbow-room. 
(Second class, by the way, has almost entirely died out.) 
The three classes are almost equal in comfort, especially 
just now, when the War has abolished nearly all dining- 
cars and sleepers. Our sleeping-car system never 
amounted to much, anyway. The journeys were too 
short to make it necessary for such as were travelling 
by night (and they were comparatively few) to go to 
bed. The lordly Pulhnan car is almost unknown here. 

I said just now that we used to be proud of our rail- 
roads in time of peace. We are doubly proud of them 
to-day in the stress of War. They passed automatically 
into Government hands the day the War broke out, and 
they have given our whole country a lesson in the art of 
carrying on. Thousands of their employees are away in 
the trenches; hundreds of their locomotives and freight 
cars are in France or Mesopotamia or Palestine, enUsted 
for the duration. You will notice them when you get 
over, marked R.O.D. (Railway Operating Department). 
They have all come from England. Miles of tracks here 
have been torn up and conveyed bodily overseas. There 
is little labour available to execute repairs, and none to 
build new stock. There is a shortage of coal, a shortage 
of oil, and no paint. Passenger services have been cut 
down by a half, and fares raised fifty per cent; yet the 
traffic is still enormous, and the strain on the depleted 
staffs is immense. But they manage somehow. Men who 
have long earned their retirement remain in service, 
while boys and women do the rest. Carry on! 



XX A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

VI. OuB Gopher Runs 

Then comes our substitute for your Subway, and 
street-car system generally. In London you will notice 
that there are two kinds of Subway — the so-called 
Underground, or shallow transit, and the deep Tubes. 
The system is so complicated, owing to the shape of 
London, that it has been found impossible to have a 
one-price ticket such as prevails everywhere in the 
United States. 

The Underground is the oldest underground railroad 
in the world. You probably gathered that for yourself 
the first time you saw it. Twenty-five years ago its 
trains were drawn by ordinary steam locomotives, 
which were supposed to consume their own smoke. Per- 
haps they did, but it must have leaked out again some- 
where. 

The old Underground Railway of London got nearer 
to the ordinary conception of hell than anything yet 
invented. Stations and trains were lit by feeble gas 
or oil lamps; all glass was covered over with a film of 
soot, and the brightest illumination was provided by 
the glow of the locomotive furnaces as the train rumbled 
asthmatically into a station. The atmosphere was a 
mixture of soot, smoke, sulphur, and poison gas. The 
trains were on the box-compartment system, and small 
compartments at that. The train usually waited two or 
three minutes in each station (instead of ten seconds as 
now), and it required a full hour to travel from King's 
Cross to Charing Cross. It was impossible to see to read 
a newspaper, so that passengers, to pass the time, used 
to rob, assault, and occasionally murder one another. 
With the coming of electric traction the old Under- 
ground was cleaned up and refurnished. At the same 
time, the Tubes were constructed away down in the 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xxi 

London clay, where there could be no interference from 
oozy gravel, or gas mains, or sewers. 

The chief trouble about the Tubes is that no one 
knows where they are. Of course, every one knows where 
the stations are. For instance, every Londoner knows 
where Piccadilly Circus Station is — the surface station. 
But where is the actual subterranean station? Or rather, 
where are the two stations, because at this point two 
roads cross, and each has its own subterranean station. 
Ah! They certainly are not where simple folk, like you 
and me, would expect them to be — under Piccadilly 
Circus. If they were, you would find them at the foot 
of the elevator. But that would be too easy. It would 
make Londoners fat and lazy, leading the sedentary life 
they do, to step straight into the train. So they have to 
walk about a mile. Where to, no one knows. But there 
is a school of philosophers which believes that a good 
many of the Tube stations have no subterranean sta- 
tions at all. One subterranean is shared jointly by sev- 
eral surface stations. A short circular train ride is pro- 
vided, just to furnish the necessary illusion, and the 
passenger, having really walked to his destination, steps 
out of the train well satisfied, and goes up the right 
elevator under the impression that he has been carried 
there. That is our Tube system as far as modern research 
has been able to fathom it. Of course, an Englishman 
could never have thought out such a good practical joke 
as these Tubes. The entire system was projected and 
constructed by an American. 

VII. Our National Joke 

But we have a sense of humour all the same. Our 
money system, like our joint system of weights and 
measures, is, as you very properly observe, a practical 



xxii A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

joke. It dates back to the time when an Englishman 
bought his Sunday dinner with a pound of rock. It is 
bound to go soon, and make way for the decimal sys- 
tem, just as inches and feet and yards are already mak- 
ing way in this country for metres and centimetres. 
Meanwhile we have got to put up with it. 

The main points for an American to remember are — 
firstly, that a shilling over here, despite war scarcity, 
will still buy rather more than a quarter will buy in 
New York; and secondly, the necessity of keeping 
clearly in mind the difference between a half-crown and 
a two-shilling piece. Even taxi-drivers do not always 
know the difference. If you give them half a crown 
they will frequently hand you change" for a two-shilling 
piece. 

VIII. Ourselves 

Lastly, ourselves. This chapter is going to be the most 
difficult. 

Last year I met an American soldier in London. He 
was one of the first who had come over. I asked his 
impressions. He said: 

''I have been in London three days, and not a soul 
has spoken to me." 

And therein was summed up the fundamental differ- 
ence between our two nations. In the United States 
people hke to see one another and talk to one another, 
and meet fresh people. If a stranger comes to town, 
reporters interview him as he steps off the train. Amer- 
icans prefer when travelling to do so in open cars. At 
home their living-room doors are usually left open. 
Every room stands open to every other. In their clubs 
and hotels there are few private rooms. In their business 
houses the head of the firm, the staff, and the clerks, 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xxiii 

frequently work together in one great hall. If any parti- 
tions exist they are only table-high or they are made of 
glass. Plenty of Hght, plenty of air, plenty of publicity. 
That is America. 

Now over here, somehow, we are different. I said be- 
fore that an Englishman's ambition in life was to get a 
compartment to himself. That principle, for good or ill 
prevails through all our habits. On the railroad we 
travel in separate boxes. At home all our rooms have 
doors, and we keep them shut. (This by the way, is 
chiefly in order to get warm, for there is no central 
heating.) In most of our clubs there are rooms where no 
one is allowed to speak. They are crowded with English- 
men. Only a few years ago one never thought of dining 
in a restaurant except when travelling. If he did, he 
always asked for a private room. If you dine at Simp- 
son's in the Strand to-day you will still see a relic of the 
custom in the curious boxed-in compartments which 
enclose some of the tables. In our business houses the 
head of the department is concealed in one hutch, the 
partners in another. The chief clerk has one too. The 
other clerks may have to work in one room; but each 
clerk cherishes just one ambition, and that is to rise 
high enough in the business to secure honourable con- 
finement in a hutch of his own. 

For the same reason every Englishman keeps a fence 
round his garden — be it castle or cottage garden — 
just to show that it is his garden and no one else's. And 
if you look into any old English parish church you will 
see the same thing. Every family has its own pew; the 
humblest pew has a door, and when the family gets 
inside the pew it shuts the door. Some of the pews have 
curtains around them as well. The occupant can see the 
minister, and the minister can see him. The rest of the 



xxiv A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

congregation are as invisible to him as he is to them. 
No one in the congregation resents this at all. They are 
rather proud of the custom. It represents to them only 
what is right and proper, the principle of a compartment 
to one's self. 

And so a nation which has lived for centuries upon 
this plan is not a nation which enters readily or easily 
into conversation outside its own particular compart- 
ment. But how was I to explain or excuse such a state 
of mind to my American soldier friend? Let me say 
right here that this constrained behaviour does not arise 
from churlishness, or want of good- will. Even the Ger- 
mans admit that. A German philosopher once said, with 
considerable truth for a German: ''The Englishman is a 
cold friend, but a good neighbour. He may shut himself 
up with his property, but he will never dream of invad- 
ing yours." This statement is only partially correct. 
The Englishman is one of the warmest-hearted and most 
hospitable of men. But he is a bad starter — a bad 
starter in War, Love, Business, and, above all. Conver- 
sation. Once get him started, and he refuses to leave off. 
But you must start him first. And you are doing it. 

The Englishman's passion for his own compartment 
goes back a very, very long way, right into the centuries. 
It goes back to the days when we lived in tribes and 
every tribe kept to itself, and an Englishman's house 
was his castle — especially if the house were a one-room 
mud hut. That makes us what we are to this day. Also 
we are cooped up in a small island, and most of us have 
never left it. No Englishman ever speaks to another 
Englishman if he can help it. This is partly the old tribal 
instinct, partly laziness, and partly fear of a rebuff. 
Also, it may involve explanations, and an Englishman 
would rather be scalped than explain. So he saves trouble 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xxv 

all round by burying himself in a newspaper and saying 
nothing. 

That by the way. But the main object of this little 
book is to make you welcome to England, whoever you 
may be, and to show you why it is that in our inarticu- 
late and undemonstrative English way, we love our 
small country just as you love your big continent. 

"This fortress built by Nature by herself 
Against infection and the hand of war; 
This happy breed of men, this little world; 
This precious stone set in a silver sea; 
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." 

That is how William Shakespeare felt about this "right 
little tight little island" three hundred years ago, in 
days when our nation was fighting for its life, neither 
for the first nor for the last time, against overwhelm- 
ingly superior forces. And we hope that when you go 
back safe and victorious, as we pray God you may, to 
your own beautiful land, you will carry with you a Httle 
of that same feeling, and a real understanding of the 
passionate sentiment that lies beneath it. 

So we bid you welcome. And we ask you, our honoured 
guests, to do all you can to get into close touch with 
the habits and point of view of our country, both here 
and upon that battle-front whither you are bound, to 
play your own splendid part in the Great Game. 

We are never going back to the old days when Eng- 
lishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Canadians, Australians, 
and Americans sat each in their own compartment, and 
thanked God that they had it to themselves. We EngUsh- 
speaking races have got together over this War. We have 
lost terribly, but we are gaining much. We are rubbing 
shoulders in London, and Paris, and countless other 



xxvi A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE 

places, and we are rubbing the knobs and the angles off 
one another, good and plenty. It is not always easy or 
comfortable to have knobs rubbed off you, and the 
process sometimes involves a Httle friction; but we must 
be prepared for that. 

For instance, we all speak English, but we all pro- 
nounce it in different ways. Well, why not? Hitherto we 
have been inclined to assume that the other man was 
talking Uke that to annoy us. That is one of the knobs 
that has to be rubbed off — intolerance of trivial 
matters of taste and habit. To-day, under the most 
searching test in the world — the test of comradeship 
in the face of battle and sudden death — we are acquir- 
ing a profound respect for one another. When we have 
acquired just one other thing — tolerance for one an- 
other's point of view — we shall have laid the founda- 
tion of an understanding which is going to hold us all 
up through some difficult times hereafter. Getting this 
old world back on to a peace basis, after the Kaiser has 
been put where he belongs, is going to call for all our 
courage, sincerity, and loyalty to our common ideals. 
When that period of Reconstruction comes — and it 
may come sooner than we think — the first plank in its 
platform must be a solid understanding between the two 
English-speaking races. They, at least, must speak with 
one voice, or the whole fabric will fall to the ground. 

Our two nations can never hope entirely to under- 
stand one another. Neither can they expect always to 
see eye to eye. Their national personalities are too 
robust. But to-day their sons are learning to know the 
worst of one another and the best of one another and 
the invincible humanity of one another. With that 
knowledge will come — if we have the will — tolerance 
of one another's point of view. We must get that. There 



A WORD TO THE DEDICATEE xxvii 

are thousands of reasons why, but to you, soldiers and 
sailors, I am only going to mention one. 

When the Victory comes, we shall enjoy its rewards. 
But all the while we shall be conscious that we have 
not won these entirely by ourselves. We shall in great 
measure have inherited them from men who have not 
lived to enjoy the fruits of their own sacrifice — men 
whom we have left behind, in France, Belgium, and 
Italy; in Asia and Africa; whose bones cover the ocean 
floor — men who gave everything that the Cause might 
live. To these we shall desire to raise a lasting memorial. 
We can best do that by building up a fabric of under- 
standing on the foundation which they laid, so truly, 
with their own lives. If we do that — and only if we do 
that — our Dead can sleep in peace; for they will know 
that what they died for was worth while, and above all 
that we, their heritors, have kept faith with them — 

"... Famous men 
From whose bays we borrow — 
They that put aside To-day, 
All the joys of their To-day, 
And with toil of their To-day 
Bought for us To-morrow." 



Ian Hay 



London, July, 1918 



The Last Million 

CHAPTER ONE 

THE ARGONAUTS 

A SHIP is sailing on the sea — a tall ship, with sev- 
eral masts and an imposing array of smokestacks. 
She is moving at a strictly processional pace, with 
a certain air of professional boredom. In fact, the 
disconsolate hissing of her steam escape-pipes in- 
timates quite plainly that she is accustomed to 
a Uvelier hfe than this. But a convoy belongs to 
the straitest sect of Labour-Unionism: its pace 
is regulated to that of the slowest performer; so 
ocean greyhounds in such company must restrain 
themselves as best they may. 

All around her steam other ships. They are 
striped, spotted, and ringstraked as to their hulls, 
smokestacks, and spars in a manner highly gratify- 
ing to that school of unappreciated geniuses, the 
Futurists, — or Cubists, or Vorticists, or whatever 
the malady is called, — but exasperating to the 
submerged Hun, endeavouring to calculate knot- 
tage and obtain ranging-points through a per- 
plexed periscope. On the outer fringe of the flotilla 
fuss the sheep-dogs — the escorting warships. 

If you seek to ascertain the nationality of our 
tall ship, by internal evidence, you will probably 
begin by observing certain notices painted up 



2 THE LAST MILLION 

about the decks and cabins, requesting you to keep 
off the bridge, or to refrain from throwing cigar- 
ends on the deck, or not to leave this tap running. 
You will next observe that these notices are in- 
scribed in Enghsh, French, and another language. 
What language, it is impossible to say, for some 
one has pasted a strip of blank paper over the in- 
scription in every case. But it is easy to guess. In 
the depths, here and there, German is still spoken: 
but upon the face of the broad ocean it is a dead 
language. 

Talking of nationalities, you will further observe 
that these ships all fly the Union Jack. But they 
are crowded with American soldiers. There must 
be thousands of these soldiers. They swarm every- 
where — bunched on deck, peering through port- 
holes, or plastering the rigging like an overflow of 
mustard sauce, which in truth they are. They are 
more than that. They are a portent. They are a 
symbol. They are a testimonial — to the Kaiser; 
for has not that indefatigable bungler by his own 
efforts brought about a long-overdue understand- 
ing between all the English-speaking people in the 
world? 

Above all, they are a direct answer to a particu- 
lar challenge. 

A few weeks ago the Men at the Top in Ger- 
many got together and held what is known in mih- 
tary circles as a pow-wow. A condensed report of 
their deUberations would have read something like 
this: 

''Yes, Majesty, the Good Old German God is un- 



THE ARGONAUTS 3 

doubtedly on the side of our Army. Still, the fact 
remains that we have not yet achieved anything, 
after three-and-a-half years of war, really worth 
while. . . . Belgium, Serbia, Roumania, Russia? 
Yes, no doubt. Each of those countries has now 
received the true reward of her stupidity and pre- 
sumption; but none of them ever offered any seri- 
ous difficulty from a military point of view, except 
Russia; and the credit for her collapse was due far 
more to our internal agents than to our external 
military pressure. . . . No, Hindenburg, I have n't 
forgotten Tannenberg; but you have n't done 
very much since then (except get gold nails 
knocked into yourself), and what you have accom- 
plished has been chiefly under — ahem! — my di- 
rection. . . . No, no, I am not really pinning orchids 
on myself — not yet, anyway. I am merely trying 
to be candid and frank: in short, I am reminding 
you that you are only a figurehead. You know what 
irreverent people call you — ' General What-do- 
you-Say!' 

'^ . . Yes, Your Imperial Highness, your con- 
summate generalship at Verdun undoubtedly 
achieved an historic victory over the French; but 
you will forgive me for pointing out that your cas- 
ualties were at least twice as numerous as theirs, 
and that the ground which you captured has since 
been regained. . . . Submarines f My good Von 
Capelle, your submarines are as obsolete as our 
late lamented friend Von Tirpitz. Justify my state- 
ment? In a moment. . . . Yes, Majesty, the British 
Army failed utterly to break our line at the 



4 THE LAST MILLION 

Somme, but they and the French took seventy- 
thousand of our best troops prisoner, and we had 
to execute a ^strategic' retirement which lost us 
about a thousand square miles of French soil. Not 
much of a performance for the German Army — 
the German Army — to put up against a mob of 
half -trained mercenaries! We managed to delude 
our people into the belief that we had scored a 
great military triumph in so doing, but the Ger- 
man nation, excellent though their discipline is, 
are not Ukely to go on swallowing that stuff forever. 
You know that, better than most, Hertling! Beth- 
mann-Hollweg knew it too: he was no match for 
Liebknecht, although he did lock him up. . . . 

''And what of the situation since the Somme? 
Haig is within ten miles of Ostend, and has cap- 
tured practically the whole of the Paschendaele 
Ridge. . . . The Eastern Front ? Nothing matters 
in this war except the Western Front. What are we 
going to do about that? . . . Your Majesty will as- 
sume supreme command? Splendid! . . .And break 
the Western Front f Colossal! That was just what I 
was about to suggest. Now for the plan of cam- 
paign, which I do not doubt Your Majesty has 
already sketched out. . . . Perhaps Your Majesty 
will permit Hindenburg and myself to remain here 
a few moments longer, while you unfold it? We 
need not detain His Imperial Highness the Crown 
Prince. He is the man of Action : his task will come 
later. {For Heaven's sake, Von Hertling, get him 
out of here, or our two military geniuses will he 
at loggerheads in five minutes!) ''. . . And now, 



THE ARGONAUTS 5 

Majesty, you suggest — ? . . . That is a superb 
plan; but it appears to me — I mean, to Hinden- 
burg — that you — we — are rating one of the 
nations opposed to us too Hghtly. . . . Yes, Your 
Majesty, I know you are going to stand no non- 
sense from them after the War, — in fact, you 
warned their Ambassador, most properly, if I may 
say so, to that effect, — but would it not be a good 
move, just as a prehminary, to stand no nonsense 
from them during the War ? . . . Too Jar away ? 
They canH get over f Well — here are the approxi- 
mate numbers of the American troops already in 
France. And there are a lot of them in England too. 
. . . Rather surprising f Yes. Indeed, quite a credit- 
able feat for an unwarlike nation. I shall show these 
figures to Von Capelle: it will justify what I said 
about his submarines : in fact, it will annoy him ex- 
tremely. And there are more coming. They are 
pouring over faster and faster. I shall tell him that 
too. . . . But the Americans have had no experience 
of intensive warfare ? And they have fallen behind 
with their constructive programme — aeroplanes and 
artillery? Quite so. And, therefore, taking these 
facts into consideration, I — Hindenburg — Your 
Majesty will doubtless decide that our only chance 
is to concentrate in overwhelming strength, here 
and now, against one of the two enemy forces at 
present opposed to us, and destroy that force in de- 
tail before the Americans can throw any considera- 
ble body of troops into the line. . . . Expensive f 
Undoubtedly. , . , No one has ever succeeded during 
this War in breaking a properly organized trench- 



6 THE LAST MILLION 

line f Agreed; but only because no one has yet been 
able or willing to pay the necessary price. The 
British might have done it on the Sonune, but 
Haig was too squeamish about the lives of his men. 
British generals are handicapped in their military 
dispositions by a pubHc opinion which happily 
does not exist in our enlightened Fatherland. I — 
Hin — Your Majesty can afford to do it. With all 
these unemployed Divisions from the Russian 
Front, we can go to the limit in the matter of casu- 
alties. . . . How many f Well, I think we can afford 
to lose a million men — say a million . . . Yes, 
indeed, Majesty, your heart must bleed at the 
prospect; but after all, it is for the ultimate good 
of Humanity. . . . ^ One cannot make omelettes with- 
out breaking eggsf^ Admirable! Your Majesty's 
fehcity of phrase shows no falling off, I perceive. 
And yet the Americans talk of their Woodrow Wil- 
son! Besides, it will be a million less to make trou- 
ble for Us after the War. Now, I suppose we are all 
agreed on the foe to be crushed? . . . The British f 
Naturally. The British! The time has come to drive 
them into the sea. Haig has recently extended his 
line twenty-eight miles — rather reluctantly, too. 
He has had to send troops to Italy, and he had 
heavy casualties in Belgium last autumn. Twenty- 
seven thousand killed, in fact. Still, without a 
supreme coromander, you cannot blame the vari- 
ous Allied leaders for ' passing the buck ' to one 
another, as the Yankees say. We can accumulate 
troops on his front — veterans from Russia — suffi- 
cient to outnumber him by at least three to one. 



THE ARGONAUTS 7 

That should suffice, if we stand by our decision 
about casualties. We will strike hard at his new 
positions, before his artillery has had time to regis- 
ter thoroughly. We will annihilate his front system 
of trenches by an intensive bombardment, while 
our new long-range gas-shells take his rest-billets by 
surprise and demoralize his Divisional and Corps 
Reserves. And I think, Majesty, that we have been 
a little punctilious about things like the Red Cross. 
After all, hospitals are a mere sentimental handi- 
cap to the efficient waging of war. Our new bomb- 
ing aeroplanes nxight be instructed to deal faith- 
fully with these, especially as the fool English have 
organized no preparation for their defence. Yes, I 
— we — Your Majesty will drive the whole pack 
of them into the sea this time! The French, iso- 
lated, can then be handled at leisure; and with Cal- 
ais, Boulogne, and Havre in our hands the Ameri- 
cans will find that they have come too late. In fact, 
we can pick them off as they arrive. Thus it is that 
Your Majesty, Hke Caesar and Napoleon, sepa- 
rates his enemies and then destroys them one by 
one. . . . Divide et Imperal Exactly! Most happily 
put. Your Majesty!" 

And it was so — up to a point. Ludendorff's 
plan was adopted. The necessary concentration of 
troops was effected with admirable secrecy and 
promptitude, and the parallel enterprises of sweep- 
ing the British Army into the sea and expending a 
million German lives were duly inaugurated. The 
latter undertaking succeeded better than the 



8 THE LAST MILLION 

former: the line sagged and wavered; it was pushed 
here and there; but it never broke. Still, the strain 
was terrible, as news arrived of Monchy gone, 
Wytschaete gone, Messines gone, Kemmel gone; of 
Bapaume, Albert, Armentieres, Bailleul, all gone 
— little hills and little towns all of them, but big 
and precious in certain unimportant eyes because 
of their associations. But the worst news never ar- 
rived. Instead, there came one morning the tale of 
an all-day assault by the Hun, deUvered in mass 
from Meteren to Voormezeele, every wave of which 
had been broken and hurled back by impregnable 
rocks of French and British infantry. So disastrous 
was the failure of that tremendous lunge that the 
enemy drew off with his dead and his shame for 
several weeks, and the non-stop run to Calais was 
withdrawn from the time-table until further notice. 

But the matter could not be left here. The Boche 
had laid a terrible stake on the table, and was 
bound to redeem it or perish. Plainly he would try 
again — maybe at some fresh point; but again. Al- 
ready there were mutterings of trouble on the 
French Front. That he would break the line — the 
line which he had failed to break at Verdun in 
1916, and at Ypres in 1914 — seemed incredible; 
but he might succeed in straining it beyond the 
limits of perfect recovery; and if that happened, 
Ludendorff 's boast that America would arrive too 
late might be justified. 

Hence the present Armada. It is only one of 
many. Transports have been crossing the Atlantic 
for months now, but never upon isuch a scale as 



THE ARGONAUTS 9 

this. There are thousands of soldiers in this convoy 
alone — men physically splendid, with nearly a 
year's training behind them. They are going over 
— Over There — in answer to the call. Russia has 
stepped out of the scale, so America must step in at 
once if Prussianism is to kick the beam. Here they 
are — a sight to quicken the pulse — the New 
World hastening to redress the balance of the Old. 



CHAPTER TWO 

ship's company 

However, we have not reached our destination 
yet; which is just as well, for at present we are fully 
occupied in assimilating our new surroundings. To 
tell the truth, some of us have a good deal to assimi- 
late. There is young Boone Cruttenden, for in- 
stance. 

Little more than a year ago he was preparing to 
settle down in his ancestral home in Kentucky, 
there to prop the declining years of an octogena- 
rian parent, Colonel Harvey Cruttenden, known 
in far-back Confederate days as one of General 
Sam Wheeler's hardest-riding disciples. But Presi- 
dent Wilson had upset the plans of Boone Crutten- 
den for all time, by inviting him and certain others 
to step forward and help make the World Safe for 
Democracy. Boone was one of the first to accept 
the invitation. 

Several strenuous months at a training-camp of 
the Reserve Officers' Training Corps followed, and 
in due course he found himself, with a gilded metal 
strip on either shoulder, communicating his slender 
knowledge of the art of war to drafted persons who 
possessed no knowledge of the subject at all — just 
as thousands of other young men of the right spirit 
were doing all over the country, and just as thou- 
sands of other young men of similar spirit had been 



SHIP'S COMPANY 11 

doing for more than three years in another country- 
three thousand miles away. 

''It was something fierce at first," he confided to 
Miss Frances Lane, a United States Army nurse, 
proceeding, in company with ninety-nine others, to 
a Base Hospital in France. 

By rights Miss Lane and her companions should 
not have been taking chances on a transport at all. 
She should have been crossing the Atlantic in a 
stately white-painted hospital ship, with the Red 
Cross emblazoned on its sides, immune by all the 
laws of God and Man from hostile attack. But the 
Red Cross makes the Hun see red. Therefore it is 
found safer in these days to adjust life-jackets over 
the spHnts and bandages of wounded men and send 
them across the water, together with the indomita- 
ble sisterhood which tends them, protected by 
something that makes a more intelligible appeal to 
KuUur than the mere symbol of Christianity. 

''It was something fierce," repeated Boone 
Cruttenden. 

"Tell me ! " commanded Miss Lane, with an air of 
authority which Boone found extremely attractive. 

"Well, in the training-camps the main proposi- 
tion was to make the boys understand what they 
were there for. They were full of enthusiasm, but 
very few of them had taken any interest in the early 
part of the war, and we were all a long way from 
Europe, anyhow. They were willing enough to 
fight, but naturally they wanted to know what 
they were fighting for. Even when we told them, 
they were n't too wise. Two or three men of my 



12 THE LAST MILLION 

company could neither read nor write; another 
man knew the name of his home town, but not the 
name of his State. The map of Europe was nothing 
in his young Ufe. Then, lots of them thought we 
were going to fight the Yankees again, and whip 
them this time!'^ 

Boone's eyes flashed, and for a moment he for- 
got all about European complications. He was his 
father's son all through. But a certain tensity in 
the atmosphere recalled him to realities. 

''I guess you are n't a Southerner?" he observed 
apologetically. 

''Massachusetts," replied Miss Lane coldly. 

Boone Cruttenden offered a laboured expression 
of regret, and proceeded: 

''Then they did n't like saluting, or obeying or- 
ders on the jump. Neither did I, for that matter. It 
seemed undemocratic." 

"So it is," affirmed Miss Lane sturdily. 

"Well, I don't know. We certainly made much 
quicker progress with our training once we had got- 
ten the idea. Our instructors were very particular 
about it, too — both French and British. There 
was an English sergeant — well, the boys used to 
come running a hundred yards to see him salute an 
officer. I tell you, it tickled them to death, at first. 
Next thing, they were all trying to do it too." 

"What was it like?" 

Boone rose from his seat upon the deck, stiffened 
his young muscles, and offered a very creditable 
reproduction of the epileptic salute of the British 
Guardsman. 



SHIP'S COMPANY 13 

''Like that/' he said. 

''I'm not surprised they ran," commented Miss 
Lane. 

"Still," continued Boone appreciatively, "that 
sergeant was a bird. At the start, we regarded him 
as a pure vaudeville act. He talked just hke a stage 
Englishman, for one thing. For another, a Geiman 
bullet had gone right through his face — in at 
one cheek and out at the other — and that did n't 
help make a William Jennings Bryan of him. But 
William J. had nothing on him; neither had Will 
Rogers, for that matter. He would stand there in 
front of us and put over a line of stuff that made 
everybody weak with laughing — everybody, that 
is, except the fellow he was talking to. I shall never 
forget the first morning we held an Officers' In- 
struction Class. There were about forty of us. Old 
man Duckett — that was his name; Sergeant In- 
structor Duckett — marched us around, and put 
us through our paces. We meant to show him some- 
thing — we were a chesty bunch in those days — 
so we gave him what we imagined was a first-class 
West Point show. (Not that any of us had been at 
West Point.) When we had done enough, he lined 
us up, and said: 'Well, gentlemen, I have run over 
your points, and before dismissin' the parade I 
should like to say that I only wish the President of 
the United States was here to see you. If he did 
catch sight of you, I know that his first words would 
be — '' Thank Gawd, from the bottom of my heart, 
we've got a Navy!'"" 

To Boone and Miss Lane now enter others. 



14 THE LAST MILLION 

(This is a trial to which Master Boone is growing 
accustomed, for Miss Lane is quite the prettiest 
girl on the ship.) Among them we note one Jim 
Nichols, who, previous to America's entry into the 
War, has worked upon the New Orleans Cotton 
Exchange ^^ever since he can remember." There is 
also Major Powers, wearing the ribbon of the Span- 
ish War medal. There are two Naval officers, cross- 
ing over to pursue submarines. Until they begin, 
Miss Lane makes a very pleasant substitute. And 
there is a British officer who walks with a limp — 
Captain Norton — returning from a spell of duty 
as Military Instructor in a Texas training-camp. 

Miss Lane, with the instinct of a true hostess, 
turns to the stranger. 

'^We were talking about our rookies, Captain/' 
she announces. ^^How did they compare with your 
Kitchener's Army?" 

^'Very much the same, Miss Lane, in the early 
days. Fish out of the water, all of them. We had all 
sorts — miners, shipbuilders, farm-hands, railway- 
men, newspaper-boys — and not one of them knew 
the smallest thing about soldiering. They knew 
pretty well everything else, I admit. The ranks 
were chock-full of experts — engineers, plumbers, 
electricians, glass-blowers, printers, musicians. I 
remember one of my men put himself down as an 
'egg-tester' — whatever that may be! An actor, 
perhaps. But hardly one of them knew his right 
foot from his left when it came to forming fours." 

" Same here," said Major Powers. ''My first con- 
signment of drafted men was a mixture of moun- 



SHIP'S COMPANY 15 

taineers from Tennessee — moonshiners, most of 
them — and East-Side Jews from New York. 
(I wonder who the blue-eyed boy at Washington 
was who mixed 'em!) The moonshiners looked the 
hardest lot of cases you ever set eyes on: they hated 
discipline worse than poison; and an officer was 
about as popular with them as a skunk at a picnic. 
But they were as easy as pie: they were scared to 
death half the time, by — what do you think?'' 

^'The water-wagon?" suggested a voice. 

''No — of getting lost! They could have found 
their way blindfold over their own hills back home; 
but they had never lived on a street before, and 
those huge camps had them paralyzed. They said 
the huts were all exactly alike — which was true 
enough — and not one of them would stray fifty 
yards from his own for fear he would not find it 
again. Curious, is n't it?" 

''Yes. Almost exactly what happened with our 
Scottish Highlanders," said Norton. "But they 
took quite kindly to city life in the end. Regular 
clubmen, in fact. What about your East-Siders? " 

"They were a more difficult proposition," said 
Powers. "In the first place, they didn't want to 
fight at all, whereas the moonshiners did. In fact, 
the moonshiners did n't care whom they fought, so 
long as they fought somebody. They were like the 
Irishman who asked : ' Is this a private fight, or can 
anybody join in?' But the East-Siders were differ- 
ent. Their discipline was right enough: in fact, the 
average East-Side rookie usually acted towards an 
officer as if he wanted to sell him something. But 



16 THE LAST MILLION 

they were city birds, born and bred. They were ac- 
customed to behave well when a cop was in sight; 
but once around the corner you could not have 
trusted them with their own salary. They did n't 
Hke country life, and they did n't like the dark. 
They were never really happy away from a street 
with illuminated signs on it — and there are n't 
many of those in Texas. If you put one of the bunch 
on sentry duty by himself in a lonely place, hke as 
not he'd get so scared he'd go skating around the 
outskirts of the camp looking for cover. I once 
rounded up four of my sentries from different posts, 
all together in one pool-room. But discipUne has 
them nicely fixed now. By the way, you heard the 
story of the Jew doughboy whose friends recom- 
mended him to take a Commission? " 

" No. Tell me ! " commanded Miss Lane. 

^^He refused, on the ground that it would be too 
difficult to collect. He said he might not be able 
to keep tally of all the Germans he killed : besides, 
his General might not believe him. Anyway, he 
preferred a straight salary! Tell us some more of 
your experiences. Captain." 

''They were much the same as yours," said 
Norton. "The trouble with Kitchener's Army was 
that practically every member of the rank-and-file 
enlisted under the firm behef that Kitchener would 
simply hand him a rifle and ammunition and pack 
him off right away to the Front — whatever that 
might be — to shoot the Kaiser. Their experiences 
during the first six months — chiefly a coiu'se of 
instruction in obedience and sobriety — was a bit 



SHIP'S COMPANY 17 

of a jolt to them. But discipline told in the end. To- 
day I believe most of them would rather have a 
strict officer than an officer they could do what 
they liked with. Leniency usually means ineffi- 
ciency ; and inefficiency at the top of things usually 
means irregular meals and regular casualties for 
the men underneath!" 

''What do you include under discipline, Cap- 
tain?" enquired that upholder of personal liberty, 
Miss Lane, suspiciously. 

''Little things, chiefly — things that don't seem 
to matter much. Shaving, and tidiness — " 

"What, in a trench?" asked several young offi- 
cers. But Major Powers nodded his head approv- 
ingly. 

"That is just what most of us ask who don't 
know," he said. "But I have seen enough service to 
have learned one thing, and that is that a dirty sol- 
dier is a bad soldier, all the world over. If a man 
is encouraged to neglect his personal appearance, 
he starts to neglect his work — gets careless with 
the cleaning of his rifle, and so forth. If a man 
takes no pride in his appearance, he takes no pride 
in his duty. The other way round, the best soldier 
is the soldier who keeps himself smart." 

"That is just what I think," interpolated Miss 
Lane, virtuously. (She had succeeded during the 
Major's homily in surreptitiously powdering her 
nose, and felt ready to take Florence Nightingale's 
place at a moment's notice.) 

"We certainly found it so," said Norton. "In 
fact, after a short experience of trench warfare we 



18 THE LAST MILLION 

revived all the old peace-time stunts. The order was 
given that every man in the trenches was to be 
shaved by a certain hour each day. (Of course, if 
the Boche attacked in mass, the ceremony was lia- 
ble to postponement.) In billets behind the line 
every one was expected to make himself as smart 
as possible — brush his uniform, shine his shoes, 
and so on. The band played for an hour every eve- 
ning. Saluting and other little ceremonies like that 
were insisted on. These things all together had a tre- 
mendous effect. I don't know why, but it was so. 
For one thing, it made life behind the lines more 
tolerable — more refreshing. In the line itself, it 
made officers more concise in giving their orders, 
and men more alert and intelligent in carrying 
them out. In fact, the greater the fuss a regiment 
made about its appearance — 'eye-wash,' we 
called it — the better its work in the field.'' 

''Things worked out that way with us too, even 
in home training," corroborated Powers. 

"So I noticed. I was in four or five big camps, in 
different States, and I found that the rate of prog- 
ress in training varied almost directly with the dis- 
cipline." 

"Which camp did you like best?" 

The British officer turned to Miss Lane, and 
shook his head. "No, you don't. Miss Lane!" he 
replied. "I belong to the most tactless race in the 
world, but I know enough to keep out of trouble 
of that kind! I had a gorgeous time in all of them." 

At this point a timely bugle blew for boat drill, 
and the harassed veteran stumped off. 



SHIP'S COMPANY 19 

Boat drill occurs at frequent intervals, and is 
still sufficient of a novelty to be regarded as an 
amusement. 

By all, that is, except the habitues — the crew, 
the stewards, and that anaemic race of troglodytes 
which only emerges from the lower depths of the 
ship under the stress of great emergency — the 
army of dish-washers and potato-peelers. These 
fall in at their posts with the half-ashamed self- 
consciousness of big boys who have been com- 
pelled by an undiscriminating hostess to partici- 
pate in children's games. They grin sheepishly, 
shiver ostentatiously in the fresh breeze, and offer 
profane but amusing comments in an undertone to 
one another. 

But few of the present passengers have ever 
been on board a ship before. Indeed, many of us 
never saw the ocean until last week. War and its 
appurtenances are for the present a game, full of 
interesting surprises and wonderful thrills. It is 
surprising, for instance, however good your appe- 
tite may have been in camp, to find how much 
more you can eat on board ship ; and it is thrilling, 
if you happen to be a rustic beauty from a very 
small town in Central Iowa, to find yourself danc- 
ing the one-step, in a life-jacket, with a total 
stranger in uniform, upon an undulating deck to 
the music of a full mihtary band. 

So most of us have entered upon the business 
with all the misguided enthusiasm of the gentle- 
man who once blacked himself all over to play 
^' Othello.'^ Some of us sleep in our clothes; others 



20 THE LAST MILLION 

carry all their valuables about their person; not a 
few donned patent hfe-saving contraptions before 
we cleared Sandy Hook. But no one appears the 
least nervous: there is a pleasurable excitement 
about everything. And we listen with intense re- 
spect to the blood-curdhng reminiscences of the 
crew, particularly the stewards. All our cabin 
stewards have been torpedoed at least three times, 
and every single one of them was on board the 
Lusitania when she was sunk. The survivors of the 
Lusitania must be almost as numerous by this 
time as the original ship's company of the May- 
flower. 



CHAPTER THREE 

THE LOWER DECK 

If you clamber down the accommodation ladder 
on to the well-deck amidships, you will find your- 
self in a world which will enable you to contemplate 
War from yet another angle. 

For a guide and director I can confidently rec- 
ommend Mr. Al Thompson, late of Springfield, 
Illinois — ''No, sir, not Massachusetts!" he will 
be careful to inform you — now a seasoned orna- 
ment of a Trench Mortar Battery. 

''We sure are one dandy outfit, '^ he observes 
modestly. ''Two hundred roughnecks! I'll make 
you known to a few. There's Eddie Gillette: you 
seen him box last night, out on the forward deck 
there? Yep? Well, you certainly seen something!" 

We certainly had. Boxing is an ideal pastime for 
a large, virile, and closely packed community, for 
several reasons. In the first place, it requires very 
little space. A twelve-foot ring will do: indeed, 
towards the end of an exciting bout the combat- 
ants can — or must — make shift with mere elbow- 
room. In the second, the novice extracts quite as 
much exercise and excitement from the sport as 
the expert — possibly more. Thirdly and most im- 
portant, boxing fulfils the cardinal principle of 
providing for the greatest good of the greatest 
number, because it affords far more undiluted hap- 
piness to the spectators than to the performers. 



22 THE LAST MILLION 

Last night, for instance, when Mr. Hank Magraw 
(weight two hundred pounds), a gladiator mainly 
conspicuous for unruffled urbanity and entire igno- 
rance of the rules of boxing, growing a trifle restive 
under the cumulative effect of three consecutive 
taps upon the point of the chin from an opponent 
half his size, suddenly gathered that gentleman 
into his arms and endeavoured to stuff him down 
one of those trumpet-mouthed ventilators which 
lead to the stokehold, the spectators voiced their 
appreciation by a vociferous encore. 

A wonderful sight these spectators are. They are 
banked up all around the well-deck, forming a 
deep pit, in the bottom of which two boxers gy- 
rate, clash, and recoil like nutshells in a whirlpool. 
Tier upon tier they rise — with their long, lean, 
American bodies, and tense, brown, American 
faces — seated in concentric circles on the deck 
itself, perched on hatches and deck-houses and sky- 
Ughts, clinging to davits and ventilators, or hang- 
ing in clusters from the rigging — all yelling them- 
selves hoarse. 

The '' announcer '^ — one Buck Stamper — 
stands for the moment at the bottom of the vortex. 
With each of his muscular arms he encircles the 
shrinking figure of a competitor, and introduces 
the pair to the audience. 

^'Boys," he bellows, in a voice which must be 
easily audible in the surrounding transports, ^^one 
of the English officers up there has come across 
with — with — a ten-shilhng certificate'^ — he re- 
leases one of his proteges in order to display a pink- 



THE LOWER DECK 23 

and- white British treasury note — ^Ho be awarded 
to the winner of this bout." 

There is a little polite applause. Then a stento- 
rian voice enquires : 

''How much is that — in money?" 

There is a great roar of laughter. The announcer 
retires, to seek an expert financier. A British ma- 
rine enlightens him, and he announces : 

'''Bout two dollars-and-a-half. On my right I 
have Ikey Zingbaum, of the Field Ambulance — " 

The immediate conjunction of Ikey Zingbaum 
and two-and-a-half dollars appeals to the crowd's 
sense of humour. When they have recovered, Buck 
Stamper proceeds : 

"On my left" — he thrusts forward a smooth- 
chinned, pink-cheeked, lusty, country lad — "Miss 
Sissy Smithers, what has got in among the boys by 
mistake!" 

Amid yells of delight the blushing Sissy shakes 
hands with his tallow-faced opponent, and falls 
promptly upon his neck. The pair, locked in a 
complicated embrace, circle slowly round the ring, 
feebly patting one another on the back. At the ur- 
gent suggestion of the spectators the referee sepa- 
rates them, caustically observing that this is a fight 
and not a fox-trot. For a short time they stand un- 
easily apart; then Ikey Zingbaum, stimulated pos- 
sibly by his supporters' constant references to the 
ten-shilling certificate, leans suddenly forward and 
boxes his opponent's ears. Miss Sissy, stung into 
indignant activity, lunges out with all his strength 
and counters fairly and squarely in the pit of Ikey's 



24 THE LAST MILLION 

stomach. Mr. Zingbaum shuts up Uke a footrule, 
and shoots stern-foremost into the thick of the 
audience. He is extracted amid shouts of laughter, 
groaning horribly, and receives first aid from a 
dozen wiUing but inexperienced hands. Presently 
he recovers sufficiently far to be informed that he 
has been awarded the match — on a foul. Miss 
Sissy, not ill-pleased with himself, modestly disap- 
pears. 

''Yes," continued Al Thompson, "you seen 
something. Was you there when Eddie Gillette fit 
that duck what we call Coca-Kola? No? I'm 
sorry. Coca-Kola 's a Turk. Comes from Turkey, I 
mean. Las' winter, when he was fighting around 
the Bowery, he would eat raw meat whenever he 
could get it. Said it kept him kinder fit. Anyway, 
he was put up las' night against Eddie Gillette. We 
picked on Ed because he was the best man in the 
Trench Mortar Section, and Coca-Kola had been 
winning out all the time for the Machine Gunners, 
where he belonged, and they was blowing some. 
Ed was giving away more than seventeen pounds of 
weight, besides which the Turk was the sort of guy 
that if he was short of money he would go up to a 
person an' say: 'You give me two bits and I'll let 
you hit me on the jaw any place you hke!' That 
was the kind of lobster Coca-Kola was, and gives 
you some sort of an idea what Ed was up against! 

"The match was to be ten rounds of two min- 
utes each. There was five dollars donated by an 
officer for the winner, and some powerful side-bets. 
But it was all over in one round. Eddie started by 



THE LOWER DECK 25 

rushing in and giving the Turk a silly little tap on 
the nose. That seemed to get the Turk's goat, for 
he went for Eddie like a cyclone, and rushed him 
all around the ring for maybe a minute. At the end 
of that he gave him a blow on the body that laid 
him flat on the deck. We all thought Eddie was 
gone for sure. The time-keeper had counted up to 
five before he come to Hfe at all. Then he began to 
recover, very slow. At ^ seven' he rolled over on his 
face. The Turk, reckoning that Eddie was too dopy 
to go on any more, just straddled around in the 
middle of the ring, looking up to the deck above 
for the officer that was donating the five bucks. 
But at ^nine' Eddie was on his feet again, like a 
streak. No one hardly saw him get up. All they did 
see was Eddie soak the Turk under the point of the 
jaw — which was well up in the air at the time. 
Coca-Kola fairly knocked a groan out of the deck 
when he struck it. It took them two hours to bring 
him round. Gee, but it was some soak! Some of the 
Machine Gun boys cut open Eddie's glove after, 
because they suspicioned he might have a chunk of 
lead there. But there were n't nothing there. No, 
sir! Nothing but Eddie's little old punch I" 

We are presented both to the victorious Eddie 
and the dethroned masticator of raw meat. The 
latter is inclined to be taciturn; but the former, 
true to national use and custom, is quite ready to 
be interviewed. 

Yes, this is his first trip across, but he is not sea- 
sick, and does not expect to be. Reason; he has 
spent twelve years on the Great Lakes, and a man 



26 THE LAST MILLION 

that can stand the up-and-down convulsions of, 
say, Lake Michigan during a winter storm, need 
not fear the spacious roll of the Atlantic. 

^'There's a ten-thousand-ton ship has went 
down there before now,'' says Eddie, referring ap- 
parently to Lake Michigan, ^^just because them 
twisty seas has sheered the heads clean off her bolts 
and opened her up. Kinder ripped her, I guess. 
Every October owners raises the pay of all hands 
on them ships fifteen per cent — raises it volun- 
tary." 

^'Why?'' 

^'Because the whole bunch would quit if they 
didn't!" 

This does not sound like a very convincing ex- 
ample of the voluntary system; but the great are 
permitted to be inconsistent. Mr. Gillette, pro- 
ceeding, considers that life on board this ship is 
tolerable, but the food monotonous. Another gen- 
tleman, chewing tobacco, now joins the sympo- 
sium. He is introduced as Joe McCarthy, of Okla- 
homa. 

^'You said it!" he announces, referring appar- 
ently to the food question. "Especially the coffee. 
The stuff they serve on board this packet ain't got 
no kick to it." 

He is reminded that he has passed out of the 
coffee belt, and that he is approaching a land of 
tea-drinkers. 

"Tea or coffee," he rejoins, with the dogged per- 
sistence of the professional grumbler, "it don't 
make no difference to me. And another thing. This 



THE LOWER DECK 27 

yer travelling by sea is a lonesome business. Give 
me a railroad! There you can look out of the win- 
dow of the car and see folks waving their hands 
to you; and presents of candy at the deepo, and 
everything. While this" — he flings a disparaging 
glance over the heaving Atlantic — ''this is all the 
same, all the time!" 

''Well, Joe," explains the fair-minded Al Thomp- 
son, "I guess we got to travel to Europe this way, 
seeing there ain't no railroad across — leastways 
not at present." 

But Mr. McCarthy refuses to be comforted. 

"Europe!" he exclaims. "There y' are! Europe 
— four thousand miles from America ! Some folks 
must be darned anxious for war, if they got to send 
us four thousand miles to find it!" 

This last sentiment produces a distinct sensa- 
tion. It is adjudged by those who hear it to border 
on pro-Germanism. Heads turn sharply in Joe*s 
direction. A certain licence is permitted to pro- 
fessional grouchers; but "knocking" the Cause is 
the one thing that the New Crusaders will not per- 
mit. 

That simple-hearted American, Al Thompson, 
conveys the necessary reproof, in a manner which 
more highly-placed diplomatists might envy. 

"Listen, Joe," he remarks: "that stuff don't go 
here. I know you been mighty seasick, and you 're 
sore on the food, and the monotony, and the other 
little glooms that come around on a slow trip like 
this. But whenever I git sore on things just now, 
like we all do, I just remember them dirty bums 



28 THE LAST MILLION 

over there marching through Belgium with Uttle 
babies on their bayonets; and then — well, all I 
care about is getting over there and killing any guy 
that calls himself a Dutchman. Let me kill a few 
of them first — and, even if they kill me after, I 
should worry !^' 



CHAPTER FOUR 

THE DANGER ZONE 

There are many other types on board. Here is one 
at your elbow. He is a sentry, on Number Nine 
post. His duties appear to be confined to scruti- 
nizing the ocean for periscopes. This is not a very 
arduous task, for we are not in the danger zone at 
present. Indeed, a good deal of this sentry's time 
appears to be spent in gazing over the taffrail 
towards the setting sun — towards America. Pos- 
sibly he ought to be straining his eyes towards 
France. But we are all human, especially the 
American soldier boy, and this boy is unaffectedly 
and avowedly homesick. Jim Cleaver's thoughts 
at the present moment are nowhere near Number 
Nine post; they are centred upon a little township 
called Potsdam, far away. This sounds good and 
blood-thirsty: unfortunately this particular Pots- 
dam is not in Prussia, but ^' way up" somewhere in 
the State of New York; and Jim's imagination is 
concerned less with the House of Hohenzollern 
than with the House of Cleaver — particularly the 
feminine portion thereof. Moreover, it happens to 
be Sunday evening; and we all know what that 
means. 

At the other corner of the deck stands Antonio. 
That is not his real name, but no matter. He will 
inform you that he has already crossed the ocean 
— once. A brief exercise in mental arithmetic will 



30 THE LAST MILLION 

presently cause you to realize that Antonio cannot 
have been born in America. This is so. He crossed 
over ten years ago, in the steerage of an Austrian 
Lloyd Uner, outward bound from Trieste, on his 
way from the sunny but unremunerative plains of 
Lombardy, in search of a mysterious Eldorado 
called Harlem, New York. And now here he is, 
aged twenty-six, picked out by the groping hand of 
the Selective Draft, on his way back again, to help 
rend those same plains (among others) from the 
Hun and restore them to their rightful owners. He 
is quite cheerful at the prospect, though he would 
sooner be with the ItaUan Army than with the 
American. Not that he is lacking in patriotism 
towards the land of his adoption, but — 

^T gotta two brother over there,'^ he explains. 
** Besides, here I gotta talka da Ingleese. Alia same, 
Ifeelafme!^^ 

Antonio is not the only man who is going back 
with a, personal interest in the European situation. 
On a coil of rope on the well-deck, broad-faced and 
Turanian, sits another young man. If Antonio^s 
real name is difficult to pronounce, this man's is 
out of range altogether; for he is a Russian. He 
is addressed indifferently as Clambakovitch or 
Eoughneckski. 

''I live fifty miles from German border," he 
says. ''I come over here seven years ago: I go 
tlirough Berlin and sail from Hamburg. Now the 
Germans have my home. I do not hear from my 
people for three years. So now I go home — 
through Berlin again! " 



THE DANGER ZONE 31 

'^And after that?" 

After that, Clambakovitch Roughneckski's plans 
are perfectly definite. He is coming back to Amer- 
ica — for good. Already he is wedded to the soil 
of Pennsylvania. Antonio's views are the same. 

The affection of her children for America is a 
wonderful thing. Domestic or imported, it makes 
no matter. To the native-born American, America 
is still the little country — the little strip of coast- 
line — which stood up successfully to a dunder- 
headed monarch in days when men did not govern 
themselves: to the naturalized American, America 
is the land which gave him his first real taste of 
personal liberty. Each cherishes America to-day — 
the one because he helped to make her free, the 
other because she has made him free. 

We are in the danger zone now. It is difficult to 
reafize that thrilling circumstance, because no one 
seems to worry at all. 

The same games of shufile-board, bull-board, 
chess, checkers, and bridge are in progress; each 
day sees the same guard-mountings, parades, and 
inspections ; off duty, the same quantity of tobacco 
and chewing-gum is being consumed. Only if the 
ship is brought up short by a heavy sea, or an iron 
door clangs suddenly in some distant stokehold, 
are we conscious of any tension at all. For a mo- 
ment heads are turned, or conversation breaks. But 
that is all. A year ago, old hands tell us, things were 
different. There really was cause for nervousness. 
But now, we are escorted, we are well-armed, and 
the worst we need fear is a few hours in the boats. 



32 THE LAST MILLION 

There is much speculation as to our destination- 
Is it the Mersey; the Clyde; Queenstown? Or 
France direct? Where are we now, anyway? Each 
noon, when the ship's officers appear upon the 
bridge in a body, and perform mysterious sun- 
worshipping rites with sextants, the amateur ex- 
perts look knowing, and refer darkly to probable 
latitudes and longitudes. One, diagnosing the pres- 
ent commotion of billows as a ''ground-swell," an- 
nounces positively that we are just off the Bay of 
Biscay. Another, basing his conclusions upon the 
lengthening hours of dayhght and the presence in 
our wake of certain sea-birds (herring-gulls, really) 
which he describes as ''penguins," announces con- 
fidently that we are now well within the Arctic 
Circle and will ultimately fetch a compass to 
Aberdeen, via Iceland. The battle rages between 
these two extremes: probably a carefully worked- 
out average of opinion would bring us somewhere 
near the truth. Gunners are quite familiar with the 
process: they call it "bracketing." But it does not 
matter. The real fun will begin when we sight land, 
and the authorities upon the subject start in to 
identify it. 

Another night has passed, and the question is 
settled. We have sighted land, and are informed 
that we may expect to make our port to-night. It is 
a breathless sunamer morning, and our great ships, 
which looked forlorn and insignificant amid the 
ocean wastes, appear to have swelled a good deal 
during the night. Certainly we form a stately pag- 
eant, for our escorting forces have been augmented. 



THE DANGER ZONE 33 

Destroyers are beating the bounds, nosey little 
patroLboats thread their way in and out of the 
flotilla; silver-grey monsters float above our heads 
m the blue, occasionally descending to dip a sus- 
picious nose towards the glittering wavelets. One 
of them dives down gracefully to within hailing 
distance of our own ship. It is a sublime moment 
A thousand Stetsons are waved in welcome, and 
an earnest query -the spontaneous greeting of 
Young America to Old England - is roared from 
one of our portholes : 
"Say, you got any heer up there?" 
At the forward end of the boat-deck Boone 
Cruttenden and Miss Lane were leaning over the 
rail, m that confidential conjunction invariable in 
all young couples, whether in war or peace, on the 
ast day of a voyage. Boone's blue eyes surveyed 
the scene around him, and glowed. 
_'It makes you think a bit!" he exclaimed. 
Here we are thousands of us Americans, on 
board British ships, being convoyed into a British 
port by the British Navy. I wish the old Kaiser 
was here! And I wish some of our folks at home 
who are asking what the British Navy is doing in 
this war could be here too! They might learn then 
what IS meant by the freedom of the seas ' " 

"Still," complained the youthful seeker after 
sensation. Miss Lane, "I did hope that we might 
have seen just one little submarine." 

It is hard to refuse some people anything - 
especially American girls of twenty-three. Miss 
Lane s wish was promptly gratified. A few hundred 



34 THE LAST MILLION 

yards away, right in the middle of the convoy, 
there was suddenly protruded from the unruffled 
surface of the ocean a few feet of something grey, 
slender, and perpendicular — something which, 
after a hurried and perfunctory survey of the situa- 
tion, retired unobtrusively whence it came. But 
not before it had been seen, and welcomed. For a 
brief minute shells burst around it, machine guns 
pattered imprecations over it, bombs descended 
upon it from the heavens above, and depth- 
charges detonated in the waters beneath. The con- 
voy altered its formation, as prudence dictated. 
But nothing further happened. Calm reigned once 
more upon the face of the waters. 

''Some little surprise for him, I guess," said 
Cruttenden. ''Lying on the bottom, and just came 
up for a look around ! He did not expect to poke his 
periscope into this hornet's nest, I should say. I 
wonder if anything hit him. I guess not : he was too 
slick. But you had your thrill right enough, Miss 
Lane!" 

Miss Lane sighed rapturously. 

"The censor has just got to pass that when I 
write home," she announced. 

Late that evening we made our port. On our way 
in we passed a British cruiser, coaling. The band 
was playing, as is usual during coaling. Our tall ship 
slid past in the dusk, undemonstratively, almost 
surreptitiously. One of the tragedies of modern 
warfare lies in its anonymity. You may not display 
your true colours or advertise your presence any- 



THE DANGER ZONE 35 

where — even to your friends. So we crept past. But 
a sailor can read ships as a landsman reads books. 
The cruiser's band stopped suddenly, right in the 
middle of a tune, and in two minutes the cruiser's 
sides, rigging, and tops were crowded with half- 
naked, coal-grimed humanity yelHng themselves 
hoarse to the roaring multitude on the hner. 

''Listen!'' shouted Boone Cruttenden into his 
companion's ear, as a fresh burst of sound added 
itself to the tumult; ''their band has struck up 
again. Can you hear it?" 

"No! Yes, I do now. I guess it's 'God Save the 
King,' or one of those tunes." 

But Miss Lane was wrong. Suddenly the cheer- 
ing died away for a moment, and the band made 
itself heard, joyfully and triumphantly, for the 
first time. 

And the tune it played was "Over There." 

"Oh, gee!'' said Miss Lane, with a sob in her 
voice. "Oh, gee!" 



CHAPTER FIVE 

TERRA INCOGNITA 

We have not yet reached France, but we have dis- 
covered England. It is a small island, and the visi- 
tor must be prepared for a primitive civilization 
— for instance, The Saturday Evening Post costs at 
least fifteen cents — but it offers a fruitful and in- 
teresting field for exploration. 

Our debarkation was not attended by any 
marked popular demonstration. Some of us were 
inclined to resent the omission as savouring of in- 
sular aloofness. But now we know the real reason. 
We are not supposed to he here. We are a dead se- 
cret. The port in which we disembarked has no 
name. Its inhabitants are plunged into an official 
trance. Therefore it would hardly be reasonable to 
expect the insensible population of an anonymous 
city to proffer a civic welcome to American sol- 
diers who are officially invisible anyway. 

However, by a fortunate accident at the mo- 
ment of our arrival, a band of musicians happened 
to be discoursing melody on the wharf, includ- 
ing such airs as ''The Star-Spangled Banner" 
and ''Dixie." Moreover, a group of British Staff 
Officers groped their way on board our impercepti- 
ble vessel and greeted us cordially. They further- 
more presented to every man of us copies of a letter 
written by King George with his own hand, bid- 



TERRA INCOGNITA 37 

ding us welcome to his realm and expressing a wish 
that it were possible for him to shake hands with 
each one of us in person. Scores of copies of that let- 
ter are now already on their way home to America 
— the first souvenir of the War. 

Thereafter we were packed into a child^s train, 
drawn by a toy engine, and conveyed at a surpris- 
ing pace through a country of green fields, cut up 
into checker-board squares by hedges and narrow 
lanes, populated mainly by contemplative cows 
and dotted with red-roofed farms and villages. 

Occasionally we passed a camp. The tents were 
toylike and tidy, Hke the country. They fitted the 
landscape, just as a great four-square American 
Army tent, with its wooden walls and dust-col- 
oured canvas top, fits in with a Texan horizon. In 
these camps were men in khaki — some drilling, 
some performing ablutions in buckets, some kick- 
ing a football. Mr. Joe McCarthy's passion for be- 
ing waved at was at length gratified. 

Occasionally we stopped at the station of some 
town. These were always crowded, as were the 
trains. The strange little compartments in which 
the English confine themselves when travelling 
were packed with humanity — some of it standing 
up and clinging to the luggage-rack — all of it en- 
cumbered with much personal property in the shape 
of bundles and babies. Evidently the War has cut 
down transportation. At either end of these trains 
a seething mob contended, with surprising good 
temper, around a mountain of heavy baggage piled 
upon the platform beside the express- van. 



38 THE LAST MILLION 

''Ain't they got no Red Caps in this country?'' 
enquired Mr. McCarthy in disparaging tones. 

''Their Red Caps are all wearing tin helmets 
over in France/' replied the well-informed Al 
Thompson. "Everybody here up to fifty is drafted. 
Folks have to tote their own grips. I notice quite a 
few women porters around. I guess their husbands 
are in France, and these are holding down their 
jobs for them." 

In which Al spoke no more than the truth. 

Meanwhile, in another part of the train, our 
friend Jim Nichols, Major Powers, and one Bond, 
a stout, comfortable representative of the Medical 
Service, together with Boone Cruttenden — the 
latter somewhat distrait, for Miss Frances Lane 
had been swept away with the other ninety-and- 
nine, by a different train, to be no more seen — 
were sharing a compartment with Captain Norton 
and a British Staff Officer — a youthful Major. 
The Major's name was Floyd; he had materialized 
during the chaos of debarkation. Norton had in- 
troduced him to the American officers; stately sa- 
lutes had been exchanged; gentlemen had stated in 
a constrained manner that they were pleased to 
know one another; the whole party had crowded 
into one compartment, and the train had started. 

For nearly an hour almost total silence reigned. 
Americans are sensitive folk, and Floyd's melan- 
choly visage and paralyzing monocle fulfilled our 
friends' most pessimistic anticipations of the Brit- 
ish Staff Officer. After a few laboured common- 
places the conversation lapsed altogether, and the 



TERRA INCOGNITA 39 

Americans devoted their attention to the flying 
landscape. 

Norton, a Httle uncomfortable, glanced occa- 
sionally in the direction of his brother officer. 
Major Floyd sat bolt upright in his seat, his gaze 
focussed upon infinity. Norton, who was a man 
of warm heart and quick temper, was conscious of 
a vague feehng of resentment. 

*'I wonder," he mused, ''why an image like this 
should have been sent as conducting officer. No 
wonder Americans think us unsociable and rude. 
And people over there were so good to us — '^ 

At this moment Floyd removed his monocle and 
addressed his right-hand neighbour — Boone Crut- 
tenden. 

''And now, Lieutenant, what are your impres- 
sions of our country?" 

Boone Cruttenden smiled. "You have not given 
me much time to formulate any, Major," he said, 
glancing at his wrist- watch. "Just an hour!" 

"That is fifty-nine minutes longer than the 
World reporter gave me when I landed at West 
Twenty-Third Street ten years ago," replied Floyd. 

"You know America? " Four homesick Ameri- 
cans spoke simultaneously. 

Floyd^s eyes twinkled. 

"Some of it," he said. "I was with the General 
Electric Company at Schenectady for three years. 
After that I worked on various electrical-engineer- 
ing jobs for about four years; I got as far west as 
Cincinnati. I'm not a professional warrior, like 
Norton there." 



40 THE LAST MILLION 

''Still, you have seen service in this War?" said 
Major Powers. 

''Oh, yes, I managed to get home from America 
just in time for the start of things." 

"Have you served in France, or on one of your 
other fronts?" asked Cruttenden. "The British 
Army has such a large selection." 

"France all the time — and Belgium. Most of us 
have taken a course of the Ypres Salient." 

"I guess those ribbons the Major is wearing 
would give us details, if we could read them," ob- 
served Jim Nichols. "What do they stand for, 
Major?" 

Floyd laughed. 

"As a traditional Englishman," he said, "I sup- 
pose I ought to hang my head confusedly and de- 
chne to answer. But I have spent ten years outside 
my own country, so I will tell you. This little fellow 
with the rainbow effect you probably know: Nor- 
ton has it too. It means that we were both in Fland- 
ers in Nineteen Fourteen. The khaki, red, and blue 
is the Queen's Medal for the South African War. 
By the way. Major Powers, I notice that you have 
the Spanish War ribbon. What is your other one — 
the yellow and blue?" 

"That relates to our Mexican Border troubles," 
replied Powers. "More discomfort than danger 
getting that. What is that third ribbon of yours — 
the red with the blue edges? " 

"That? Oh, that is the D.S.O." 

"What does that stand for?" asked Boone. 

"Well, before the War it was popularly supposed 



TERRA INCOGNITA 41 

to stand for 'Dam Silly Officer!' Since then, how- 
ever, the military profession has risen in the eyes of 
the world; so it now means 'Done Something or 
Other M'' 

''And what did you get it for?" pursued the in- 
satiable Boone. 

Floyd laughed. 

"Counting jam-tins at the Base!" he said. 

"I suppose it was while counting jam-tins you 
lost your arm," suggested the quiet voice of Major 
Bond. 

Floyd laughed again. 

"You are too sharp for me, Doctor," he said. "I 
plead guilty. My left arm is an understudy. The 
original is astray somewhere around Beaumont 
Hamel. I have had to stay at home since then. But 
now I want to get back to my first question, Lieu- 
tenant. What are your impressions of this country 

— your first impressions? I really do want to know. 
I have been aching to ask you for the last hour, but 
I felt that I had to play up a little first. Monocle — 
vacant stare, and all that ! The traditional English- 
man, in fact. I felt you were entitled to meet one," 
continued this eccentric man; "and I took especial 
pains to give you a good impersonation, because 
you may experience some difficulty in finding an- 
other. The fact is, the traditional Englishman is 
getting rare. We have all been shaken out of our- 
selves these days. After the War he may come back 

— perhaps. Perhaps not." He sighed gently. "But 
at present I am here to supply you with informa- 
tion about the customs and institutions of this 



42 THE LAST MILLION 

country. I am detailed for the job. I am paid for 
it. Please ask me questions, somebody?'^ 

No one could resist this solemn appeal. First one 
query was proffered, then another. Presently the 
American passion for getting to the root of the 
matter was in full play. 

'^Why did the Enghsh travel in closed boxes? 
Why were the locomotives so small, and why did 
they burn soft coal? Why were there so many over- 
head bridges when a grade-crossing would suffice? 
What would be the wages of that old man working 
in that field? What was that bright yellow crop 
growing in that section? Why did vehicles in a 
street keep to the left? Was there any organized 
system of irrigation, that the country was all so 
green? Was there game in those woods, and who 
had the right to hunt it?'^ 

Norton, a professional soldier from his school 
days, knew nothing of many of these things. He 
was also a typical Englishman, and had been 
brought up to accept matters as he found them. 
But he was the son of an English country squire, 
and he was able to name the various crops — 
meadow-grass, hay-grass, wheat, oats, barley, pota- 
toes, beans — whose variegated colours impart to 
an English landscape its curious crazy-quilt effect. 
He was well-versed, too, in agricultural economics 
and the hoary traditions of the feudal system, and 
discussed voluminously, as an Englishman will 
when started upon his own subject, upon farm- 
labourers' wages, the rotation of crops, and the 
Ground Game Act. 



TERRA INCOGNITA 43 

Floyd, who agreed with Dr. Samuel Johnson in 
regarding one green field as very like another green 
field, recked nothing of these things. But he was a 
mine of information on railroad management. To a 
deeply interested audience he traced the origin of 
the standard railway gauge of the world back to an 
obscure English colliery road of George Stephen- 
son's days: he ascribed the multitude of overhead 
bridges and tightly locked level crossings to the 
benevolent fussiness of the Board of Trade. He 
even knew — to the frank amazement of Captain 
Norton — the maximum height from rail-level to 
which a British locomotive, by reason of the afore- 
said bridges, can aspire — thus accounting for the 
stunted appearance of the same by comparison 
with its American brother, which in an atmosphere 
of greater freedom is permitted to soar some nine 
feet higher. Greatly daring, he even justified the 
British custom of keeping to the left, on the ground 
that it dated back to the days when men rode on 
horseback, and riders and postiUons, to mount or 
dismount, must perforce draw in to the near side of 
the road. 

An American is forever battling between two 
instincts — native appreciation of what is modern 
and efficient, and inherited veneration for what is 
ancient and inconvenient. Common sense usually 
compels him to favour the former; but he is never 
so happy as when he can conserve or justify the 
latter. 

Major Floyd gratified this instinct. He carried 
his hearers back to the days of stage-coaches. He 



44 THE LAST MILLION 

told of the opening of the Stockton and Darhngton 
Railway; of Brunei and the Broad Gauge; of the 
railway races in the nineties, when the Scottish Ex- 
press ran four hundred miles in seven hours. Alto- 
gether, in his able hands, ^'Romance brought up 
the Nine Fifteen/' 

The locomotive gave a shriek, and the train be- 
gan to slowdown. Major Powers turned from the 
contemplation of a tiny English town nestling in a 
shallow valley a mile away. With its red roofs and 
square church tower set against a background of 
living green, it looked the embodiment of unevent- 
ful drowsiness. Certainly a httle imagination was 
required to realize that under nearly every one of 
these same roofs there stood at least one empty 
chair — a chair that might or might not be occu- 
pied again — and that beneath that ancient tower 
for four long years, week by week, in good times 
and in bad, women, children, and old men had con- 
gregated to pray that those whose names were in- 
scribed upon the illuminated scroll in the church 
porch — squire's son, parson's son, farmer's son, 
poacher's son — might in God's good time come 
home again, having achieved the purpose for 
which they had set out. 

Powers possessed the requisite imagination. He 
had been reared in Kentucky — that land of fair 
women and noble horses. This toy town, which 
could have been transported bodily into his native 
State without materially affecting either the land- 
scape or the census, appealed to him, as small chil- 
dren appeal to large people. 



TERRA INCOGNITA 45 

He turned to Norton, and said simply: 
''Captain, I have never been outside of America 

before. I have been looking over this little island of 

yours, and I want to tell you, right now, that I 

think it is worth fighting for!'' 

''Thanks awfully," said Norton gravely, and 

offered an unexpected hand. 



CHAPTER SIX 

SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE ISLANDERS 

We are now at a rest-camp, recharging our batter- 
ies after the fatigues of sea travel before proceed- 
ing to the conquest of Germany. 

The camp is situated deep in rural England. At 
our feet, in a valley, lies an ancient city, dominated 
by a mighty cathedral. It was once a walled city, 
but only the gates remain now — King's Gate and 
West Gate. At the top of the High Street stands a 
great rough-hewn statue of Alfred the Great — 
dead for more than a thousand years. He makes a 
fine figure, with his coat of mail and uplifted broad- 
sword. Mr. Eddie Gillette, among whose sterUng 
virtues sentiment finds no place, compares him, 
not unfavourably, with a New York traffic cop. 
Mr. Joe McCarthy, still dyspeptic from the effects 
of prolonged ocean travel, describes the deceased 
monarch as a tough guy, and adds further that in 
his opinion this is a dead town. Al Thompson, of 
finer clay, inspects the statue approvingly, then 
passes on with a handful of interested spectators 
to the cathedral, whose grey walls keep eternal 
vigil over the dust of Saxon, Norman, and English 
dead — much of it ancestral American dust. 

Elderly gentlemen in maroon dressing-gowns 
conduct the party round, and in piping tones in- 
troduce the New World to the Old. But not all 
Old. In one nook of the great fabric, guarded by 
Old Glory itself, gleaming brightly in the twilight, 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 47 

stands an Innovation — a temporary shrine dedi- 
cated to fallen American soldiers, particularly 
those who have died in English hospitals from 
wounds received in France. After the War the me- 
morial is to take the form of a permanent stained- 
glass window. At present in England people are 
not manufacturing stained-glass windows — only 
earning them. 

The countryside is full of camps — typically 
English — not spacious and bewildering such as 
those which scared the mountaineer from Tennes- 
see, but prim and tidy, like an English kitchen- 
garden. The white conical tents are set out in close, 
level rows, like cabbages. The Headquarters tent 
and the Officers' Mess are fenced in by a ring of 
curious boundary-stones, set a few feet apart and 
carefully whitewashed. The district is full of Eng- 
lish soldiers. We have never seen them before, and 
we regard them with interest. We note with grati- 
fication that they are in the main smaller than our- 
selves and not so well set-up, though sturdy enough. 
Their teeth appear to require attention: gold teeth 
have not yet reached this country. They wear 
ragged mustaches, and smoke eternal cigarettes. 
The language that they speak is entirely incom- 
prehensible. 

Their officers, on the other hand, present a de- 
cidedly gay and frivolous appearance. They look 
very young; they wear their caps at a rakish angle; 
they carry canes. They are secretly regarded by 
many of us as verging upon the Clarence class. But 
the old stagers of our camp warn us not to form 



48 THE LAST MILLION 

our judgments too hastily. When we are able to 
read the biography which every British soldier 
carries upon his sleeve or breast — scraps of rib- 
bon, service chevrons, wound stripes, and the like 

— we will realize that things, especially in Eng- 
land, are not always what they seem. 

In fact, we have begun to realize this already. 
They are not communicative, the people we meet 
here. They talk little of the War, except possibly 
to belittle their own conduct thereof or disparage 
their own leaders; but we are dhnly conscious that 
England is not making a display of company man- 
ners at present. Her luxurious private parks are 
scarred by horse-lines; her golf-courses are growing 
potatoes. Her great country-houses, badly in 
need of paint and plaster, are flying Red Cross 
flags, and convalescent soldiers in hospital blue 
lounge upon balustraded terraces where peacocks 
were wont to strut. Her automobiles appear to 
have enlisted in the Army: they wear a business- 
like uniform of grey paint, and are driven by at- 
tractive young women in khaki. Every one ap- 
pears to wear a uniform of some kind — certainly 
no one wears mourning — and all seem too busy to 
worry about ceremony. 

When we arrived in this town, after our long 
cross-country journey from our landing port, we 
were conscious of a pleasant feeling of anticipation. 
We thought of the folk who had seen us off at home 

— cramming the railway stations, cheering, wav- 
ing, weeping — and though we naturally did not 
expect such a demonstration, we did expect some- 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 49 

thing. Well, it did not turn out that way. We ar- 
rived almost furtively, in the dead of night, in a 
station where one gas-lamp in six was burning. We 
were warned to fall in quietly, and to refrain from 
noise as we marched through the town. 

''Not a very overwhelming display of cordiality, 
I'm afraid,'^ said Major Floyd; ''but we are up 
against official secrets again. A lady called Dora : ^ 
you will become well acquainted with her. It is not 
officially known to any one — except the Boche, of 
course — that this is an American Rest Depot, so 
we are concealing the fact from the inhabitants. 
The streets are a bit dark, I'm afraid; but we are 
precious short of coal — supplying France and 
Italy as well as ourselves — and that hits our light- 
ing arrangements rather hard. Besides, we have 
the Gothas to think of. Are your men ready to 
move off. Colonel? Very good: I'll lead the way. 
You will notice our solitary attempt at the glad- 
hand business just outside the station." 

The "solitary attempt" proved to be a dis- 
creetly illuminated notice spanning the street on 
the fagade of an arch. It said: Welcome, America! 

As an emotional outburst the greeting was per- 
haps open to criticism on the score of reticence; 
but to some of us, who knew our stiff, angular, in- 
articulate England better than others, there was 
something rather moving about the whole idea. 

We tramped under the sign. Those who had the 
fancy to turn and look up at the other face of the 
arch found another notice : God-speed ! 
1 D.O.R.A. Defence of the Realm Act. 



50 THE LAST MILLION 

'^' God-speed M That's a bit sudden/' observed a 
young machine-gunner to a grizzled Enghsh ser- 
geant who was acting as assistant shepherd. 
''We've hardly arrived yet." 

''That ain't meant for you, my lad," replied the 
veteran. ''You ain't supposed to read that — yet. 
That 's for another lot of your boys what are start- 
ing off to-night for France. You'll likely meet 'em 
coming down the 'ill as you goes up." 

We did. And when the event took place — • 
when the two bands of tramping American exiles 
brushed hands for a moment in the soft summer 
darkness of a strange land — I fear there was some 
transgression of official regulations on the subject 
of silent and secret night marching. But, after all, 
there are limits to human virtue. 

Yes, everybody here appears decidedly busy — 
especially the women. That shrewd observer of 
humanity, Al Thompson, does not fail to remark 
upon the fact in a letter to his wife: 

You get kind of used here to see a woman do all the chores 
that we all considered a man's job. Driving automobiles, or 
cleaning windows high up in the air, or delivering mails, or 
tending a street-car, or despatching trains. They have boys, 
quite little fellers, to help them with the trains. The woman 
does the work and the boy blows a whistle, like what you 
would expect of a boy. I seen a whole bunch of girls one day 
outside a factory, with their faces and hands stained yellow. 
That was picric acid: they make shells with it. It spoils 
their looks some, but they should worry. They just waved 
their hands and laughed at us when we tried to josh them. 
I reckon the girls at home are all doing that too now; but 
don't you go for to stain yourself yellow, my dear. 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 51 

But the Islanders are not too busy to make an 
attempt to entertain us. Some of these attempts 
are rather formidable. To boys hke Second Lieu- 
tenant Sam Richards and his crony Jim HoUis, in 
whose pleasant little home town far west of the 
Alleghenies every one knows every one else, and 
young men and maidens usually exchange invita- 
tions over the telephone (which instrument is 
practically unknown in Enghsh rural districts), 
and that awful shibboleth of English society, the 
language of the third person, is happily extinct, it 
is a little alarming to find upon the bulletin-board 
in the Mess a stiff square of white pasteboard bear- 
ing the legend: 



Col. Adams and Officers 




LADY WYVERN-GRYPHON 




AT HOME 




SATURDAY, JULY 6th, 3:30 P.M.- 


-7:00 


AT 




LAWN TENNIS BROADOAK PARK 


R.S.V.P. 



Jim Hollis scrutinized this document whimsi- 
cally. Then he turned to his companion. 

'^We must get this right,'' he said. '^Who is 
Lady Wy-Wy— ?" 

''Never mind," said Sam. ''Call her Lady Whis- 
key-Syphon — I bet the name is n't pronounced 
the way it's spelled, anyway." 



52 THE LAST MILLION 

^^Well," continued Jim, '^who is Lady Whiskey- 
Syphon, and what does this ^ad/ mean?'^ 

^'It means,'' repUed Sam, whose sense of humour 
was always stimulated by the contemplation of 
British National institutions, ^'that this Lady has 
been away and now she's back home." 

''For three and a half hours?" 

''Yes. These people have a bunch of homes, like 
our millionaires. They own real-estate lots all over 
the country, and it stands to reason they have a 
home in each." 

"And why does she put 'Lawn Tennis' down 
there in that corner?" 

"Because she's going to play lawn tennis, from 
three-thirty to seven. That's easy." 

"But what does she want to tell us for? We are 
nothing in her young hfe." 

"She wants us to go play with her," explained 
Sam gently. "Nobody can play lawn tennis by 
themselves. She wants you, boy." 

"Where does it say that?" enquired the incredu- 
lous James. 

"It doesn't say it. The English don't say it. 
It would sound too eager. They just mention 
the event casually, and if you want to go you 
can." 

"But I don't want to go." 

"Well, write and say so." 

"Why? It doesn't tell me to do that on the 
card." 

"Does n't it? Jim HoUis, have n't you got any 
sisters to tell you what things mean? Look at that 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 53 

R.S.V.P. down there! That's the reference-num- 
ber of the file, and you quote it in replying." 

Jim paled. 

^^ Listen, how do you address anybody Hke 
that?" he enquired, despairingly. 

Sam's eyes twinkled. 

^'Ask the Adjutant," he advised. 

Reference to that overworked official eUcited 
the information that the invitation had already 
been accepted by the Colonel on behalf of the 
Mess, and that if the regiment were still in Eng- 
land on July the sixth two or three officers would 
be detailed to accompany him to Broadoak Park. 

''Me for the backwoods on the sixth!" mur- 
mured Master Hollis fervently. 

But the very next day, as Jim and Sam were 
toihng up the hill to the camp after inspecting the 
cathedral, they were overtaken by an elderly auto- 
mobile. It drew up beside them, and a rather gruff 
voice enquired: 

''Won't you get in and let me drive you up to 
the camp? I am going that way, anyhow." 

They accepted gratefully — it was a blazing hot 
day — and presently found themselves chatting 
composedly, with the American's natural instinct 
for easy conversation, with a high-nosed, deep- 
voiced old lady in black. 

"One ought to be thankful to be able to drive 
anywhere these days," remarked their hostess — 
"let alone give any one a lift. Do you know how 
much petrol the Controller allows me? Ten gallons 
a month! And I live five miles from a railway sta- 



54 THE LAST MILLION 

tion! It used to be six gallons, but I get a little 
more now because I am taking in more patients. 
My house is a hospital, you know." 

They did not know; but it did not seem to mat- 
ter, for the old lady continued: 

"I hope you are coming to my tennis-party on 
the sixth. You will meet some charming girls — 
mostly V.A.D.'s. You got a card, I suppose?" 

Jim, shrinking back into the cushions, pressed 
uneasily upon the toe of his brother officer. But 
Lady Wyvern-Gryphon swept on: 

^'I realized afterwards how stupid I had been to 
send out the cards at all. It would have been much 
simpler and more considerate to do what I am do- 
ing now — pay an informal call on your Colonel 
and ask him to bring along any officers who might 
have nothing better to do on the day, instead of 
bothering busy men to answer silly written invita- 
tions. But one can never do a thing except in the 
way one has done it for forty years — even with a 
War on. You must have thought me very tire- 
some." (She pronounced it ^'tarsome.") ^'What 
quaint experiences you must be having among 
us!" 

^'We are having very pleasant experiences," 
said Jim. 

''That's nice of you. You said it much more 
promptly than an Englishman would have done, 
too. Do you know," continued this most informal 
grande dame, rounding suddenly upon the speaker, 
''that when you smile you are amazingly Uke my 
second son?" 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 55 

"He is in France, I suppose? '' hazarded Jim. 

"Yes — he is in France. And — he is not com- 
ing back to me, I fear.'' The old lady's voice was as 
gruff as ever. "It happened at Le Cateau, nearly 
four years ago. He was mentioned in Despatches, 
though. One will always feel glad of that." 

"And proud," added Sam Richards. 

"Oh, yes — proud too. Pride is the greatest 
boon bestowed on mothers in war-time. I don't 
know why the clergy are always preaching against 
it. Before this War I possessed four sons, and a cer- 
tain modicum of pride. Now I have only one son, 
but I have four times as much pride. One finds it 
very sustaining. Have you boys mothers?" 

Both boys nodded assent. 

"Well, if you will give me their addresses I 
will write to them both, and say I have seen 
you. Mothers like first-hand information, you 
know." 

Visiting-cards were produced shyly, and disap- 
peared into a little black bag. 

"I have never been in America," continued 
Lady Wyvern-Gryphon. "But one of my daugh- 
ters-in-law is American. She came from Philadel- 
phia. Is that anywhere near your homes? You 
know it, at any rate." 

They confessed that they lived some fifteen 
hundred miles from Philadelphia. 

"Indeed!" remarked her ladyship, not at all 
perturbed. "That is interesting. We have no con- 
ception of distance in this country. Now tell me, 
how does an American country town differ from a 



56 THE LAST MILLION 

town like this? What does a street look like, com- 
pared with one of ours?" 

''Wider, and straighter," said Jim. 

''With maple trees growing along," added Sam. 

"The houses are wooden," continued Jim, 
warming up — "painted white, with a piazza, and 
wire doors to keep the flies out in — " 

"And no fences between the houses," continued 
Sam, almost shouting. "And none in front. You 
just step right down on the street." 

"And in summer-time," interrupted Jim, with 
eyes closed rapturously, "when the sun strikes 
down through the maple trees, an' — oh, gee, I 
wish I was there now!" 

After that our two Ueutenants took entire 
charge of the conversation. They conducted Lady 
Wyvern-Gryphon, street by street, block by block, 
through their home town. They described the rail- 
road station, where the great trunk track runs 
through and the mail trains pause for brief refresh- 
ment on their long journey to the Pacific Coast. 
They described the.PuUman cars; the porters with 
their white jackets and black faces; they related, 
with affectionate relish, one or two standard anec- 
dotes aimed at that common target of American 
sarcasm, the upper berth. They described the 
street-car system, and explained carefully that to 
get from Sam's house to Jim's you had to change 
cars at the corner of M Street and Twenty- 
first — 

"There's a drug-store on the corner," mentioned 
Jim. (Whether as a topographical pointer or in 



SOCIAL CUSTOMS 57 

wistful reference to far-distant ice-cream soda, is 
not known.) 

They passed on to the million-dollar Insurance 
Building downtown; the State University on the 
hill above; the Country Club, with its summer 
games and winter dances. Finally, being American 
and not English, they spoke frankly, naturally, 
and appreciatively of their womenkind. Alto- 
gether, being but boys, and homesick boys at 
that, they spoke all that was in their hearts, and 
incidentally conveyed considerable warmth to the 
heart of a rather formidable, extremely lonely, old 
lady. 

They saluted politely when the time came to 
part, and informed their new friend that they were 
very pleased to have known her. 

'^And I am very pleased to have known youT^ 
replied her ladyship, with a heartiness which would 
have surprised some of her friends. ^' Don't bother 
about that tennis invitation. You probably won't 
be here, anyway, to judge from the speed with 
which you all scuttle through this country. Come 
to lunch to-morrow instead, and tell me more.'' 

They went. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

THREE MUSKETEERS IN LONDON 

Our stay in England has been prolonged beyond 
the usual time, chiefly because that impartial foe of 
the just and the unjust, the Spanish Influenza, has 
opened a campaign against us, and it is manifestly 
fooUsh to attack Germany before you have settled 
accounts with Spain. 

Pending the time when our invalids shall be 
convalescent, we have had some interesting ex- 
periences. We have explored the countryside, 
and studied and analyzed the structure of insular 
society. We have consorted with Barons, Squires, 
and Knights of the Shire; with Bishops, Priests, 
and Deacons; with Waacs, Wrens, and V.A.D/s; 
with Farmers, Hedgers, and Land Girls; with 
Mayors and Corporations. They are all interest- 
ing; most of them are quite human; and all, once 
you know them, are extremely friendly and anxious 
to entertain us. 

For instance, there was the Fourth of July, offi- 
cially celebrated in London. British Official — not 
American. The Americans are a patriotic people; 
but it certainly had not occurred to us, sojourning 
in Great Britain, to undertake, this year of all 
years, any ostentatious celebration of the founda- 
tion of our national liberties. 

But John Bull would have none of this false deli- 
cacy. 



THREE MUSKETEERS 59 

^^My dear fellow," he said in effect, ^'of course 
you must celebrate the Fourth of July. We know it 
is one of your greatest national festivals. We will 
help you. We will put up flags, arrange a demon- 
stration, and devise special features for the day. 
Let me see — you usually have fireworks, don't 
you? Sorry! I'm afraid we can't quite manage fire- 
works this year. You see, they might be miscon- 
strued into an air-raid warning. But anything else 
— bands, processions, baseball? My boy, you shall 
have them all! What else? Won't you require 
pumpkin-pie, or cranberry sauce, or something of 
that kind? Oh — that 's Thanksgiving f I beg your 
pardon. Stupid of me to mix 'em. Anyway, you 
must have a jolly good time. We should never for- 
give ourselves if we did n't give you a chance to 
celebrate an occasion like that. I know how we 
should feel if we had to cut out Christmas, old 
man!" 

We forbore to explain that Christmas is also, to a 
certain extent, a recognized festival in the United 
States, and merely accepted John Bull's invitation 
in the spirit in which it was offered — that is to 
say, with great heartiness but some vagueness as 
to the probable course of events. 

However, everything worked out right on the 
day. On the Fourth of July, nineteen eighteen, 
London was turned over to the Americans. In the 
morning, parties of American soldiers and sailors 
proceeded to explore the town. They enquired po- 
litely of passers-by for the Tower of London; the 
Old Curiosity Shop; the Houses of Parliament, 



60 THE LAST MILLION 

Westminster Abbey; Buckingham Palace. The 
passers-by, though cordially disposed, did not al- 
ways know where these places were. The Londoner 
takes his national monuments, like the British 
Constitution and the British Navy, for granted, 
and is seldom concerned with the Why and Where- 
fore thereof. However, we succeeded in discover- 
ing most of these places for ourselves, and were 
gratified to observe that Old Glory was amicably 
sharing a flagpole over the Palace of Westminster 
with the Union Jack. 

By high noon most of us had squeezed ourselves 
into Central Hall, Westminster, where all the 
Americans in London seemed to be gathered, to- 
gether with a goodly percentage of the native ele- 
ment. A soHd wedge of convalescent soldiers in 
hospital blue supplied the necessary reminder of 
the Thing which had brought us together. The 
speakers included a British ex-Ambassador, vener- 
ated on both sides of the Atlantic, a British Cabinet 
Minister, an American Admiral, and an Ameri- 
can General. Altogether, an affair to write home 
about. 

Thereafter, refreshment, at the Eagle Hut, the 
Beaver Hut, Washington Inn, and other recently 
opened hospitality centres. At one of these Ikey 
Zingbaum succeeded during the rush of business 
in cashing a Confederate twenty-dollar bill, which 
had been ^'wished on" him one dark night some 
years previously, and which he had carried in his 
pocket, faint yet pursuing, ever since. He got four 
pounds sterling for it — a rate of interest more 



THREE MUSKETEERS 61 

indicative of International amity than financial 
condition. 

Al Thompson, Ed Gillette, and that captious 
critic Joe McCarthy (not yet entirely recovered 
from dyspepsia incurred upon his maiden ocean 
voyage), pushed their way out of the crowded Hall 
into the blazing July sunshine, and enquired of one 
another simultaneously : 

''Where do we eat?'^ 

In a spirit of appropriate independence they 
decided to elude the special arrangements made 
for their entertainment and forage for themselves. 
From the moment of their embarkation from their 
native land their daily diet had been selected and 
provided by a paternal but unimaginative Depart- 
ment of State, and their stomachs cried out for 
something unusual, unexpected, and, if possible, 
unwholesome. But London has an area of seven 
hundred and fifty square miles. This offers an em- 
barrassing choice of places of refreshment. They 
swung on their heels undecided. 

''I guess we better ask some guy," suggested Ed 
Gillette. 

The motion was seconded by Al Thompson. 

''There's a Jock," he said. "Let's go ask him." 

They approached their quarry — a squat figure 
in a kilt, with a round and overheated counte- 
nance beaming like a vermilion haggis under a vo- 
luminous khaki bonnet — and addressing him as 
"friend," enquired: 

' ' Where do folks eat around here? ' ' 

The Scot smiled affably. 



62 THE LAST MILLION 

^T'm no varra weel acquent with this toon," he 
admitted. ^Tf it was Airdrie, now, or Coatbridge! 
I'm awa' there to-night. I'm just on leave, like 
yourselves. But I doot we'll no be goin' far wrong 
if we keep along toward The Strand. Will I come 
with you?" 

''Sure!" rephed Ed Gillette heartily. 

''This is on us," Al Thompson hastened to add. 

The Scotsman led the way. Whether he had 
grasped the implied offer of hospitality is doubtful. 
However, that hardened cynic Joe McCarthy 
cherished no illusions on the subject. He sniffed 
contemptuously. 

Their walk towards The Strand — it is to be 
feared that their guide's sense of direction was 
once or twice at fault — gave them further oppor- 
tunities of studying the habits and customs of the 
strange race upon whom they had descended. In 
one quiet street — there are many such in London 
these days, for traffic is down to a minimum — 
they beheld a middle-aged lady hail a crawling 
taxicab. The driver of the vehicle took not the 
slightest notice, but slid upon his way. 

"There's jest twa- three o' they taxis nowadays 
where formerly there was a hunnerd in a street," 
explained that man-ab out-town. Private Andrew 
Drummond. "Consequently, they can pick and 
choose. They'll no tak' a body that looks ower 
carefu' of their money. There 's another yin! 
He '11 give the auld wife the go-bye too, I 'm think- 
ing. She doesna look like yin o' the extravagant 
soort." 



THREE MUSKETEERS 63 

He was right. A second taxi sauntered past the 
gesticulating lady. This time the driver, after a 
single fleeting glance, condescended to flip his 
right hand in the air, in a gesture which may have 
been intended to indicate that he had particular 
business elsewhere, but more probably expressed 
his contempt for the pedestrian world in general. 

The gesture was observed by a passing citizen 
— an elderly gentleman with white whiskers and 
spats — who, at first appropriating it to himself, 
stopped and glared at the offender. Then noting 
beauty in distress upon the sidewalk, he assailed 
the taxi with indignant cries. 

''Hi, there! Taxi! Stop! Stop, there! Don't you 
see the lady hailing you?" 

The taxi-driver perfectly impassive, pressed his 
accelerator. 

''Stop, confound you! " yelled the old gentleman, 
waving his umbrella. "Stop, you blackguard! 
Don't you hear — " 

This time the taxi-driver replied with a gesture 
quite unmistakable, and disappeared from sight 
round the corner. 

The old gentleman turned apologetically to his 
Ariadne. 

"Intolerable! Monstrous!" he announced. "If 
you will allow me, madam, I will stay and secure 
the next taxi for you, or give the man in charge." 

"Boys," murmured the dreamy voice of that 
bonny fighter, Ed Gillette, "I guess we'll stay an' 
see this through. We're nootral, of course, but 
maybe we can hand the taxi-driver a Note!" 



64 THE LAST MILLION 

Without further pressure our four friends an- 
chored in a favourable position on the opposite 
side of the sunny street, and awaited developments. 
One or two vehicles sped through, but they were 
either military automobiles or taxis carrying 
passengers. Once or twice a tradesman's delivery- 
van passed by, rendered top-heavy in appearance 
by a bloated gas-bag billowing upon the roof. But 
nothing else. 

^^'Nother dead town!'' murmured Joe Mc- 
Carthy, not without satisfaction. 

As he spoke, another taxi, with flag up, swung 
round the corner. The old gentleman, taking up a 
frontal position in the middle of the street, waved 
his umbrella. The taxi, with a swerve that would 
have done credit to a destroyer avoiding a mine, 
eluded him, and resumed its normal course. This 
manoeuvre accomphshed, it slackened speed again. 

But the British are a tenacious race. The elderly 
champion of the fair turned and ran with surprising 
swiftness after the receding vehicle. He overtook 
it. He took a flying leap upon the footboard beside 
the driver, and grasping that astonished malefactor 
by the collar with one hand laid hold of the side 
brake with the other. Employing the driver's 
neck as fulcrum, he pulled the lever with all his 
strength and jammed the brakes on hard. His 
baffled victim having automatically thrown open 
the throttle of the engine, the whirring back 
wheels, caught in the full embrace of the brake, 
skidded violently; the cab described a semicircle, 
and ran to a full stop on the sidewalk with its radi- 



THREE MUSKETEERS 65 

ator (which had narrowly missed Joe McCarthy) 
pressed affectionately against some one^s area 
railings. 

After this all concerned got into action with 
as little delay as possible. The old gentleman, 
descending from his perch, opened upon his 
opponent at a range of about three feet. Such 
phrases as ^'Ruffian!'' ^'Bandit!" ^^Thug!" "Ya- 
hoo!" 'Tolice!'' ''War on, too!'' flew from him 
like hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by 
the complete unexpectedness of the attack, and 
further hampered by having swallowed the glow- 
ing stub of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the 
official communique) with creditable promptness. 

''Call yourself a gentleman? " he coughed. "'Ard- 
workin' man like me ! . . . Over milingtary age! . . . 
Carryin' on as well as I can till the boys comes 
'ome! . . . Disgrace, that's what you are! . . . Got 
a job in the War Office, I'll lay a tanner! ... I'll 
summons you for assault and damagin' my keb ! 
. . . The first copper I sees ..." 

And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, 
much to her own surprise, found herself propelled 
by four pairs of willing hands into the cab. This 
done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing 
Scots-American chorus assured her through the 
window-glass that the entire matter would straight- 
way be adjusted. ("Fixed" was the exact term 
employed.) 

But now a new figure added itself to the tab- 
leau — a sHghtly nervous individual in blue, with 
silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed 



66 THE LAST MILLION 

in a deprecating fashion, and produced a note- 
book. 

''That a cop?'' enquired Ed Gillette of the 
Scot. 

''No jist exactly. He's a 'Special.' I doot he'll 
no be a match for the taxi-man." 

But the Special Constable, though his lack of 
stolidity betrayed the amateur, had been well- 
drilled in his part. 

"Now, then, now, then," he demanded sternly, 
"what's all this? Driver, what is your cab doing 
up against these railings? You are causing an 
obstruction." 

These questions were promptly answered by 
the old gentleman in a sustained passage, sup- 
ported by a soprano ohhligato from the interior of 
the taxi. The "Special" listened judicially, and 
finally held up his hand. 

"That'll do," he intimated, and turned to the 
taxi-driver. 

"What have you got to say?" 

The taxi-driver, having by this time cleared his 
larynx of cigarette-ash, shrugged his shoulders. 

"Me? Oh, no think! What I say don't matter. 
I'm a poor man: I don't count for anythink. That 
old garrotter only tried to murder me — that 's 
all! Flew at me, he did, out of the middle of the 
road like a laughin' hyena, and nearly broke my 
neck, besides wreckin' my keb. But of course I 
don't matter. Let 'im 'ave it 'is own way. One law 
for the rich, and another — " 

"Do you charge this gentleman with assault?" 



THREE MUSKETEERS 67 

interpolated the Special, who had evidently come 
to the conclusion that it was time to get down 
to the rigid official formula provided for such 
occasions as this. 

''Charge 'im? And waste 'alf a workin' day at 
a blinkin' police court, waitin' for the case to come 
on? Not me!'' replied the taxi-man, with evident 
sincerity. ''Oh, no, I'm only a pore — " 

"Constable, will you please tell this man to drive 
me to Half-moon Street?" demanded a high- 
pitched voice from the interior of the cab. 

"I have no power to compel him to drive you 
anywhere, madam," replied the Special, with 
majestic humility. 

"Well, what powers have you got?" shouted the 
old gentleman. 

"At your request, sir, I can take his name and 
number, and you can charge him with declining 
to ply for hire when called upon to do so," chanted 
the limb of the Law. "Do you wish to charge 
him?" 

"Wish?'' shrieked the old gentleman. "Of 
course I wish! I mean" — as he met the cold and 
steady eye of the Special — "I shall be obhged if 
you will charge this man, officer." 

"Very good," was the gracious reply. "Now 
I can act J' The Special turned to the cabman, with 
pencil poised. "Your name?" 

"Most certainly you shell 'ave my name!" 
retorted the other, with the air of a master- 
tactician who at last sees his opponent walk into 
a long-prepared trap. "And my number, too! 



68 THE LAST MILLION 

And you'll oblige me, Constable, by takin' his 
name and address as well. I don't intend for to — " 

''Yom- name?" suggested the Special unfeel- 
ingly. 

''Henery Mosscockle, Number Five-oh-seven- 
oh— " 

Details followed, all duly noted. Then came 
the turn of the old gentleman. He proffered a 
visiting-card, and gave another to the cabman, 
who apologized for being unable to reciprocate, 
on the ground that he had left his card-case 
on the Victrola in his drawing-room. Our Three 
Musketeers, together with their D'Artagnan, 
were moved to audible chuckles. The old gentle- 
man, aware of their presence for the first time, 
swung round and addressed them. 

''American soldiers!" he exclaimed. ''Good- 
morning, gentlemen. I am sorry that you should 
have witnessed such a poor specimen of British 
patriotism. None of that sort in your country, 
I'll be bound!" 

Our friends saluted politely, and cast about for 
an answer which should be both candid and equally 
agreeable to all parties — not, when you come to 
think of it, a particularly easy task. But it was 
that ill-used individual, the taxi-driver, who 
replied. He thrust a bristling chin towards the 
old gentleman. 

"Patriotism?" he barked. "As man to man, tell 
me — 'ow old are you?" 

"That," snapped the old gentleman, "is my 
business!" 



THREE MUSKETEERS 69 

''Well," announced the taxi-driver, with the 
air of a man who has been awarded a walk-over, 
'T'm fifty-seven. Any sons?" 

''Two." 

"Two? Well, I got two too — one in the East 
Surreys and the other in the Tanks. ('E was a 
machine-gunner in the first place.) Both bin in 
the War four years. Both bin wounded. What are 
yours in? The Circumloosion Office, or the Con- 
chies' BattaUon?" ^ 

"One is in the Coldstream Guards. The other 
was a Gunner, but he was killed." 

The cabman became human at once. 

"I'm sorry for that — sir! May I ask where?*' 

"First Battle of Ypres." 

"Epray? That was where our Bert stopped his 
first one." 

"I have a son too," interpolated the Special 
eagerly — "in the — " 

But no one took any notice of him. The cab- 
man and the old gentleman had entirely forgotten 
the existence of the rest of the party. 

"Not badly wounded, I hope?" 

"Nothing to signify — a couple of machine- 
gun bullets in the forearm. The second time was 
worser. That was at a place somewhere in the 
'Indenburg line, spring of last year. 'En-in-'Ell, 
or some such name. Bert copped a sweet one that 
time — bit o' shell-splinter as big as me 'and. It 
was nearly a year before 'e was fit to go back. 
You see — " 

1 "Conchies," being interpreted, means "Conscientious Ob- 
jectors." 



70 THE LAST MILLION 

But the old gentleman had laid an indignant 
hand on the other father's shoulder. 

'^You mean to tell me/' he demanded, ''that 
your son, twice badly wounded, has been sent 
back to the firing-line again?" 

''I do. He's there now.'' 

For the second time that day the old gentleman 
began to shake his fist. 

''It's monstrous!" he shouted. "It's damnable! 
They did the same thing to my boy — my only 
surviving boy! It's this infernal system of throw- 
ing all the burden on the willing horse — this 
miserable cringing to so-called Labour!" He 
choked. "The Government ... If I were Lloyd 
George ..." He exploded. ''Pahf' 

"Never mind," said a soothing voice from the 
interior of the cab. "If he won't go, he won't. 
Besides, it 's no use making him violent. I dare 
say I shall be able to get another taxi. Will you 
please open this door. Constable? It seems to 
have stuck." 

The two parents stopped short, guiltily con- 
scious of having strayed from their text. Al 
Thompson addressed the driver. 

"Say, friend," he enquired, "ain't you got 
enough gas to take this lady where she belongs?" 

"Gas?" The taxi-driver glared suspiciously. 

"He means petrol," interpreted the Special. 

"I got about an inch-and-a-'alf in me tank," 
replied the taxi-driver, half-resuming his profes- 
sional air of martyrdom. "I been on this box since 
eight this mornin', and ain't 'ad a bite o' dinner; 



THREE MUSKETEERS 71 

but 111 take the lady anywheres in reason. She 
ain^t arst me yet. I don't want to be disobligin' 
to nobody. 'Elp everybody, and everybody '11 
'elp you! That's my motto. Give us a 'and, 
matey" — to Al Thompson — '^and back my 
keb off the curb. Crank 'er up, Jock! Thanks! 
Good-mornin', all! Good-mornin', sir!" 

^^Good-morning!" called the old gentleman. 
^^You have my card. Come and tell me how your 
sons are doing. Meanwhile I '11 tackle those rascals. 
We'll get something done! Twice wounded! The 
same old story! Oh, criminal! Monstrous! Da — " 

The cab rattled away, leaving the old gentle- 
man to apostrophize His Majesty's Government. 
The Special, with the air of a man who has per- 
formed a difficult and delicate task with con- 
summate tact, packed up his pocket-book and 
resumed his beat. 

''And now," enquired the peevish voice of Joe 
McCarthy, ''Where do we eatf' 

They dined at a red plush restaurant somewhere 
off the Strand, and were introduced to some further 
War economies. 

First, the waitress. By rights she should have 
been a waiter. 

''Bin here nearly two years, now," she informed 
them. "The last man here was called up in March. 
Sorry for the Army if there's many more like him 
in it. Flat feet, something cruel. Anyhow, there's 
only us girls now." 

"And varra nice, too!" ventured Andrew 
Drunamond. 



72 THE LAST MILLION 

''None of your sauce, Scottie," came the reply, 
promptly, but without rancour. 

''You're married, ma'm, I see," said Al Thomp- 
son deferentially with a glance at her left hand. 

"Widow," said the girl briefly. "Since the 
Somme, two years ago." 

"That's too bad," observed Al, painfully con- 
scious of the inadequacy of the remark. 

"Most of us has lost some one. In the house 
where my sister 's in service there 's three gone — 
all officers. I'm not one to ask for sympathy when 
there's others needs it more," replied this sturdy 
little city sparrow. "Carry on — that's my 
motto! He was in the Field Artillery: just bin 
promoted bombardier. Got any meat coupons?" 

They shook their heads. As regularly rationed 
soldiers they were free from such statutory fetters. 

"Better have bacon and eggs," announced 
Hebe. "They're not rationed." She dealt them 
each a slice of War bread. Butter they found was 
unobtainable; so was sugar. Andrew suggested 
that the party should solace itself with beer; but 
his companions, like most Americans, whether 
of the dry habit or the wet, preferred to drink 
water with their actual meals. The fact that the 
water when served was tepid received due com- 
ment from Joe McCarthy. 

"That's the way folks always tak' it here," 
explained Andrew. "I dinna often drink it mysel', 
I canna see what other kind o' water ye could 
expect." 

"You could put ice in it," grunted Joe. 



THREE MUSKETEERS 73 

^^Ice?" The Scottish soldier explained the 
omission with elaborate tact. 'Tn this country/' 
he pointed out, ^'ice is no obtainable in the sum- 
mer-time. We are situated here in the Temperate 
Zone, and if a body needs ice, he has tae wait till 
the winter for it. Oot in Amerikey I doot ye '11 
be able tae gather it all the year roond. Aye! 
couldna fancy iced watter mysel'. It must be sair 
cauld tae the stomach." 

Ice being unobtainable, it was obviously futile 
to ask for ice-cream. Sweet corn the waitress had 
never heard of: the mention of waffles merely 
produced an indulgent shake of the head. How- 
ever, a timid enquiry for pie — after Andrew had 
amended the wording to ^Hart" — was more 
successful. It was obvious War-pie, but it satis- 
fied. 

^^And," enquired their conductor, as they 
shouldered their way, full-fed, into the Strand, 
^Vhere are you boys for now?" 

They were bound, it seemed, for a great Ball 
Game between the American Navy and Army, 
at a place called Stamford Bridge. This was out- 
side the ken of Andrew Drummond, but a police- 
man directed their attention to the Underground 
Railway System of London. 

Presently they found themselves at the great 
football ground, converted for the time being into 
American territory. It is true that King George 
himself sat in the Grand Stand, surrounded by 
Generals, Admirals, and Councillors. It is true 
that thousands of British soldiers, sailors, and 



74 THE LAST MILLION 

civilians lined the ground, and that British brass 
bands made indefatigable music. But it was 
America's day. From the moment when the teams 
lined up, and the two captains were presented to 
the King by an American Vice-Admiral and an 
American Major-General, the proceedings were 
controlled by the fans and rooters of the American 
Navy and Army. 

How far the British contingent followed the 
intricacies of the combat it is difficult to say. 
When Al Thompson pointed out a sturdy but 
medium-sized player, and announced that he had 
once been a Giant, Andrew Drummond merely 
wondered vaguely why he had shrunk. When 
another player was uproariously identified as a 
late Captain of the Red Socks, the English spec- 
tators mentally registered the Red Socks as some 
obsolescent Indian tribe — like the Blackfeet. 

But you cannot, as has been well said during this 
War, remain neutral on a moral issue. Within 
twenty minutes every one on the ground was 
shouting ''Attaboy!" or consigning the umpire to 
perdition, or endeavouring to imitate the con- 
certed war-songs of the rival sides. When the 
sailors won the game by a narrow margin every 
soldier present, American or British, lamented to 
heaven. 

''This is the End of a Perfect Day, I guess," 
remarked that most satisfactory guest, Al Thomp- 
son, as the trio made their way arm in arm along 
the crowded Strand in the cool of the evening. 
''What do you say, Ed?" 



THREE MUSKETEERS 75 

^'Sure!'' replied Mr. Gillette. 'Tine!" 

''You all right, Joe?'' enquired Al. 

The carper made no reply, but looked about 
him with a dissatisfied air. 

"Seems to me/' he remarked querulously, 
"that this War ain't such a fierce proposition as 
folks made out. Look at these people all enjoying 
themselves." 

"Well, I guess they done their day's work," 
said Gillette pacifically. "Besides, most of them 
are in khaki — or else that hospital uniform" — 
as a string of char-d-hancs conveying convalescents 
to the theatre rattled cheerfully past. 

But the misanthrope would not be denied. 

^' These here wounded don't appear to be 
wounded so bad," he grumbled. "You don't never 
see no seriously wounded men in the streets of 
this town." 

"No," rapped out Al Thompson, ruffled for 
once, "and you don't see no dead laying around 
neither! I guess if you was to take a walk through 
a hospital, Joe McCarthy — No, you can cancel 
the hospital. This will do." 

They had reached Charing Cross Station. From 
the farther gate streamed a slow-moving proces- 
sion of loaded Red Cross ambulances. Another 
procession, empty, was moving in at the nearer 
gate, to disappear inside the station. Down an 
adjacent street stretched a line of more ambulances, 
and more yet. But the busy crowd in the Strand 
gave little heed to the spectacle. They had wit- 
nessed it, or could have witnessed it, at this hour 



76 THE LAST MILLION 

and in this place, among others, any evening 
during the past four years. 

Our friends halted, waiting for an opening in 
the close-moving stream. Presently it slowed 
down and stopped, and Joe McCarthy led the way 
across. But he paused curiously, as did the others, 
at the open back of an ambulance, and peered in. 

The car contained four passengers. Each lay 
very still upon his stretcher — two upon the floor, 
and the other two packed neatly on shelves over- 
head. All were rolled up in brown Army blankets. 
From the end of one of these protruded a heavily 
splinted and bandaged foot. Another man had 
his arm strapped across his chest. The third lay 
on his face, his back torn by shrapnel. The fourth 
lay on his back. His head was swathed in band- 
ages, and only one eye was visible. It was closed. 
One hand was bandaged; the other clasped to his 
bosom a German sniper's helmet. 

As they gazed, another figure edged in beside 
them — a London flower-girl, in the usual dilapi- 
dated shawl and deplorable hat, with her fragrant 
stock-in-trade clasped in the hollow of her left 
arm. She plucked a couple of pink carnations from 
a bundle, and flung them to the man with the 
bandaged head. 

''For you, ole sport,^' she announced, ''with 
my love. So long!" 

The wounded man opened his visible eye and 
smiled his thanks; and the girl was passing on to 
the next ambulance, there to squander more of her 
sole means of livelihood, when a hand of iron fell 



THREE MUSKETEERS 77 

upon her shoulder. On the defensive in a moment, 
she whirled round. 

''Nar, then! You stop pawin' me! I never done 
no— '^ 

But Joe McCarthy, misanthrope, merely de- 
prived her of the bundle of pink carnations, placing 
in her grimy palm in exchange all the money he 
happened to have with him. It was roughly three 
days' pay — no mean sum in the most highly paid 
Army in the world. Then leaning into the ambu- 
lance, which had begun to move again, he depos- 
ited the flowers beside the wounded soldier, and 
said gruffly: 

^^Say, Tommy!'' 

The solitary eye opened again, and a voice 
replied: 

''Tommy yourself! I'm from Elizabeth, New 
Jersey. We're all Doughboys in here." 

The Three Musketeers, thrilled to the core, 
broke into a trot, and panted: 

''You don't say? Where you been fighting?" 

"Place called Belleau Wood. Good-night, boys ! " 

It was their first contact with actuality. 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

THE PROMISED LAND 

We have now discovered France. Our first impres- 
sion of that fair but voluble land is one of amaze- 
ment that the inhabitants should be able to speak 
such a difficult language so fluently. Even the 
children can do it. 

Later, we modified that opinion — either be- 
cause we found that the French tongue was not 
so difficult as we had imagined, or more probably 
because we had learned that in France a knowledge 
of French is not so indispensable — at any rate, 
in war-time — as we had imagined. Indeed, we 
found the French language quite as intelligible 
as some of the English rural dialects. Contrari- 
wise, the French appeared to understand our mode 
of expression much more readily than some of our 
English hosts. 

For instance, if you ask an English railway 
porter for such a simple thing as the check-room 
or the news-stand, he will simply gape at you; 
whereas, if you stride into a French country hotel 
and hold up one finger — natiu-ally one has to 
employ gesture just a little with the Latin races — 
and say ^^Oon room!'' in a firm voice, the pro- 
prietor will comprehend at once, and smilingly 
hand you a key right away. One can only ascribe 
this instant sympathy to the freemasonry of a 
common democratic ideal. Or it may be that a 



THE PROMISED LAND 79 

room is the only thing which a hotel proprietor 
could expect a stranger carrying a grip to ask for. 

However, this by the way. The main point is 
that we are at last in France — France, the land 
of the Great Adventure, for which our ardent 
dreams and hard training have been shaping us 
for months past. 

Still, at first sight it is not too easy to realize 
that we are there at all; for the surroundings in 
which we found ourselves on landing might have 
been lifted bodily from Hoboken. 

Speaking of Hoboken, we note that the prevail- 
ing slogan of the moment, posted on barrack walls, 
painted on transport wagons, even blazoned in 
stencilled letters across the wind-shields of Staff 
automobiles, is: Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken by 
Christmas! To this pious aspiration one ardent 
spirit has added, in smaller lettering: But let it be 
Hoboken, please, via Berlin! 

Certainly, the Armies of Invasion, both friendly 
and hostile, have transformed France, each in its 
own way. The Hun in the east has effected his 
share of the transformation in his own way, by 
fire, rapine, and pillage. But the British and 
Americans in the west have left a mark just as 
unmistakable and, it is to be hoped, more endur- 
ing. A great army cannot disembark upon the soil 
of another people's country without importing 
a great deal of its own personality at the same 
time. That accounts for the foregoing reference to 
Hoboken. The amount of portable property that 
we have brought with us is enormous. There were 



80 THE LAST MILLION 

days, not far distant, when a soldier subsisted 
upon the country wherein he found himself. 
During the Shenandoah Valley campaign Stone- 
wall Jackson's men hved on unripe corn and green 
apples, for the very good reason that there existed 
no means of providing them with anything else. 
Throughout the centuries this fact has kept ex- 
peditionary forces down to reasonable numbers; 
the size of an army was limited to the capacity of 
the country to support it. But modern science has 
changed all that. Canned meat has revolutionized 
warfare far more surely and permanently than the 
aeroplane or the submarine. It is now possible, by 
modern methods of food preservation and trans- 
portation, to arm practically a whole nation and 
maintain it continuously and comfortably in the 
field thousands of miles from its base of supplies. 
That is why France is the most overcrowded and 
best-fed country in the world to-day. 

Modern transportation has also made possible 
— which in warfare means indispensable — the 
intensive employment of heavy artillery. We use 
siege guns to-day where yesterday we employed 
eighteen-pounders and seventy-fives. That in- 
volves the construction of complicated railroad 
systems — tracks, sidings, locomotives, ammuni- 
tion-wagons — all over the country, operating 
forward and sideways behind the line. Two years 
ago — twelve months ago — the spot where we 
find ourselves was a sleepy third-rate seaport, 
whose very existence was known to few English- 
speaking people, save the captains of Channel 



THE PROMISED LAND 81 

coasters. To-day that port still slumbers in the 
Brittany sunshine, but it has thrown out an 
annexe many times larger than itself, comprising 
a complete system of docks and basins, two hun- 
dred and fifty miles of railroad siding, and enough 
storage accommodation to house two million tons 
of military supplies. 

But American activity has not halted there. To 
secure a provision of fair drinking-water for the 
huge population of this mushroom city the Engin- 
eers have constructed a great reservoh* among the 
foothills a few miles away — an enterprise which 
frankly astonishes the natives, to whom, in com- 
mon with the rest of their countrymen, water as a 
beverage is unknown. 

One other item — an inevitable item — swells 
the population of the district. This is the great 
American Base Hospital, which has been erected 
by the side of the main road leading inland from 
the coast. The hospital is a city in itself. Its build- 
ings, cunningly isolated one from another, cover 
many acres, and contain twenty-four thousand 
beds. Thank God, these have never yet all been 
occupied at one time. 

And this great base port is only one of several. 
That fact is borne in upon us at every turn by the 
prevalence of large printed signs, headed. Race to 
Berlin I which plaster the town. Upon these signs 
are printed in column down the left-hand side the 
names of all the base ports used by American 
troops — our own port among the number. At 
the opposite edge of the sign there is a great black 



82 THE LAST MILLION 

splash, marked Berlin. The splash is connected 
to each of the base ports by a straight black line. 
On each line, at varying distances from the base 
ports, stands a small movable flag. The big idea, 
any passer-by will tell you, is to stimulate activity 
among the units forming the Service of Supply by 
means of healthy competition. Every good day's 
work in any port sets the flag of that port an inch 
or two nearer Berlin. A port is not called upon to 
compete with other ports (which would be mani- 
festly unfair, for some are larger and better 
equipped than others), but only with its own 
previous record in the matter of unloading ships, 
and the like. 

Attached to each diagram is a printed notice, 
pointing out in simple language that hard work 
at the base is just as indispensable as hard fight- 
ing at the front, and that when Victory comes the 
credit will be shared equally by both departments. 
Thfe notice is signed John J. Pershing, and it has 
roused the dusky warriors at the various base 
ports to a fever of emulation. 

Certainly there is much to unload. An army 
carries as much personal baggage as a prima donna. 
Observe these wharves. Here are great naval guns 

— fourteen-inch. They are like millionaires, be- 
cause each requires a private railway train of its 
own. In fact they are super-millionaires, because 
each requires a private track as well. There are 
great motor-lorries, some from America, some 
from England. There is a fleet of rolling kitchens 

— or ^^soup-gims," as the Doughboy calls them — 



THE PROMISED LAND 83 

awaiting horse-traction. At present they are 
hitched one behind another hke a string of ducks, 
and are attached to a road engine for transference 
to the forward areas. There are mighty Mogul 
locomotives, shipped bodily from the United 
States, together with the appurtenances thereof — 
even that mysterious tolhng bell on top of the boiler. 

The American locomotive bell impresses Euro- 
peans enormously. They wonder what it is for. On 
the whole they regard it with reverence ; it confers 
a sort of ecclesiastical sanctity upon American 
railroad travel. A Scotsman once told me that 
whenever he visited America he used frequently 
to wake up in the sleeping-car, standing in some 
great railroad junction in the small hours, under 
the firm impression that he was back in his native 
town on a Sunday morning. 

As for the ordinary military stores, they come 
in one unceasing cataract. GasoHne tanks; water- 
tanks ; cold-storage carcasses ; bags of flour; canned 
meat; canned fruit; bales of clothing; consign- 
ments of tobacco; chewing-gum, books, and other 
comforts. Liberty motors; aeroplanes; machine 
guns; spare parts. The dingy, oddly painted ships 
come sliding down from the horizon, deposit them 
all in mountain ranges upon dock and wharf, then 
turn round and steal back to America for more. 

Shells are not landed here. They are touchy and 
inflammable folk, and have a private and exclusive 
place of debarkation of their own, higher up the 
river. 

But there is human freight to be deposited too. 



84 THE LAST MILLION 

Here are two liners, newly docked. Each, despite 
her great size, is heeling over towards the wharf, as 
the biggest ships will when the whole cargo hangs 
over one side. One cargo is white, the other col- 
oured. 

^^ Where yo' from?'^ shrieks a stevedore, to the 
dusky grinning human mountain above him. 

^'Seventy fo', Fo'teen Street, Lebanon, Illinois!" 
pipes a solitary voice far up the height, before any 
one else can answer the question. There is a roar 
of laughter at this egotism, and another voice 
from the wharf enquires: 

''What camp? '^ 

''Camp Dodge! Labour Battalion!" roars an 
answering chorus. 

"Step right down, boys! We got lots of labour 
for you heah!" yells the humorist on the wharf. 

The white contingent on the other ship proves 
to be from Camp Sherman. What is of far more 
importance, however, is the fact that both ships 
possess clean bills of health, only nine cases of 
sickness being reported altogether. This is good 
news, for influenza and pneumonia have been ram- 
pant. Troops on the great transports have been 
saddened of late by the continuous spectacle of 
eager young hearts committed to the deep without 
ever having beheld their Promised Land. There 
have been rumours, too, of hundreds of stretcher- 
cases landed in Liverpool from a single convoy. 
But apparently the plague is stayed. We shall 
have a chance now to be killed — which is a very 
different matter from dying like a common civilian. 



THE PROMISED LAND 85 

In due course the gentleman from Fourteenth 
Street, Lebanon, IlHnois, set foot upon the soil of 
France — to his own profound relief. His name was 
Joseph WilHams. His calHng, up to date, had been 
that of elevator attendant in the leading — in fact, 
the only — hotel in his native town. He had never 
been from home in his life, and when the long arm 
of the Selective Draft reached out from Washing- 
ton, D.C., and pounced upon Joseph in Lebanon 
and dropped him into the maelstrom of Camp 
Dodge, it launched him upon a series of experiences 
so novel and so surprising that his eyes had never 
quite regained their sockets, nor had his mouth 
been completely closed, since. American negroes 
vary a good deal in tint, but there were no half- 
measures about Joseph. He was coal-black; and 
as his teeth and the whites of his eyes were china- 
white, he furnished a most effective colour-scheme. 
He was, moreover, a youth of cheerful counte- 
nance, and performed the most ordinary military 
duties with an air of rapturous enjoyment. 

But the voyage across had been a severe trial. 
Joseph had never seen the ocean before, and his 
introduction to that element had not been aus- 
picious. For fifteen long days the convoy had 
tumbled and lurched through the Atlantic wastes. 
The weather had been contrary; fogs numerous. 
The lame ducks of the party had been more than 
usually dilatory. Joseph and his brethren — pos- 
sibly with some long-dormant ancestral chord of 
recollection astir within them — had been first 
scared, then demoralized, and finally had given 



86 THE LAST MILLION 

up hope. After the first week they abandoned all 
expectation of ever seeing land again. Late one 
night the officer on duty, going his rounds amid 
the Chinese opium-den of close-packed bunks in 
the ship's hold, overheard Joseph's voice, uplifted 
above the creaking of timbers and the snores of 
his associates, imploring Providence for the sight 
of ^^jus' one liT lone pine-tree — no mo' dan dat!" 

— as a divine guarantee that the deep waters of 
the Atlantic had not entirely submerged the 
habitable globe. 

But now, Joseph had arrived. He was ^^ right 
there." The sun shone warmly upon him, and the 
good brown earth lay firm beneath his large feet 

— the soil of France, which he had come to save. 
His smile expanded : his soul burgeoned. He would 
explore this town, and fraternize with the inhabit- 
ants. 

Leave obtained, he set forth. He observed with 
approval, as a member of a family which had de- 
rived its income for generations from the taking- 
in of other people's washing, the elaborately 
starched and frilled caps of the Normandy fisher- 
women. He returned with interest the shy smiles 
of little French girls in wooden sabots. When a 
bullet-headed little French boy in a long black 
pinafore stood to attention upon his approach and 
exclaimed, "Americain, Salu-u-u-ut!'^ Joseph Wil- 
liams beamed from ear to ear. 

Presently, emerging from the town, he made for 
the open country — a country of undulating sand- 
dunes, with here and there a windmill atop, fever- 



THE PROMISED LAND 87 

ishly churning. To these succeeded green fields, 
dotted with humble farms and homesteads. Joseph 
observed that all these buildings were of stone or 
brick, wood being doubtless unobtainable in this 
sterile country. The inhabitants were not numer- 
ous — able-bodied men were conspicuously absent 
— and every one within sight appeared to be work- 
ing. In the nearest field a small boy was directing 
the movements of two placid horses by means of 
that peculiar agonized howl with which a French- 
man always conducts business of an urgent nature, 
whether he be reviling a political opponent or sell- 
ing evening papers. Farther away an oldish man in 
French Territorial uniform was cutting hay, as- 
sisted by two strapping young women. 

Even the very old and the very young were em- 
ployed. And in this connection Joseph stumbled 
upon the ideal occupation for persons who possess 
those twin adjuncts of the philosopher — a con- 
templative mind and a dislike for work. 

Hitherto the summit of his ambition had been to 
stand one day in glorious apparel upon the tessel- 
lated flooring of a great New York hotel, opposite 
the elevators, and nod his head in Jove-Hke fashion 
whenever he thought it desirable that another ele- 
vator should go up. But now another and more 
restful career presented itself to him. 

Every French peasant possesses a cow or two — 
perad venture half a dozen. To feed these, pasture- 
land is required. But no thrifty Frenchman would 
set aside valuable arable land for this purpose, 
when the roadside is free to all. A properly edu- 



88 THE LAST MILLION 

cated French cow can always be relied upon to ex- 
tract a meal from the strip of dusty herbage that 
runs between the roadway and the ditch in every 
country lane in France. The trouble is that such a 
pasture is considerably longer than it is broad — 
three feet by Infinity is the dimension — and a 
cow of epicurean temperament may be inclined to 
wander too far, or even lose herself. Therefore, an 
escort must be provided — usually for each indi- 
vidual cow, for the collective convoy system is of 
little practical use here. So the Landsturm is called 
out. At early dawn Grandpere totters off up the 
road escorting, let us say, Rosalie; while Toinette, 
aged six, departs in the opposite direction, with 
the inevitable huge umbrella under one arm and 
Victorine's leading-string under the other. Thus 
the day is spent. It is a day without haste, without 
heat; for the pace is that of a browsing cow. More- 
over, it is a day without supervision — grateful 
and comforting to an enlisted man of six months' 
standing — and its responsibilities are limited to 
steering the cow out of the way of approaching 
traffic, either by personal appeal from the shade of 
a neighbouring tree, or in extreme cases with the 
umbrella. It is not necessary to observe a course or 
take bearings: you may simply drift, because the 
cow always knows the way home. Decidedly, said 
Joseph Williams to himself, this was the life. Ele- 
vator-starting was a sociable and decorative call- 
ing, but made too severe a demand upon the facul- 
ties. After the war he would settle right here in 
France and chaperon a cow. 



THE PROMISED LAND 89 

It was at this point that Joseph went finally to 
sleep, in the shadow of the cow which had started 
his train of thought. He awoke greatly refreshed — 
he had arrears of sleep to make up after the dis- 
comforts of the voyage — and set out for the 
town, with his mind a luxurious blank, except for 
two small matters. First, the entire absence of any 
suggestion of war. Joseph had half expected to find 
his landing disputed by the full strength of the 
German Army. Conversation on board had tended 
that way, and he had promised himself a happy 
hour writing home to describe how he, followed by 
his devoted adherents, had triumphantly over- 
come the foe's resistance. In fact, he had written 
the letter already. Second, every one in this coun- 
try appeared to be white — French soldiers, French 
sailors, French civihans. He longed for the sight of 
one ebony face. Even a mahogany one would do. 

And on the outskirts of the town the latter 
wish was gratified. A sfedden turn in the road 
brought him face to face with his own double — or 
very nearly. The double was attired in what Joseph 
took to be a French uniform of some kind, the most 
conspicuous and enviable items of which were im- 
mensely baggy trousers and a red fez. 

The double, after one glance at Joseph's modest 
khaki uniform and homely features, broke into a 
dazzling smile. The pair advanced rapidly upon 
one another and shook hands with enormous en- 
thusiasm. Both broke into speech simultaneously. 

Then befell the tragedy. Each spoke a tongue 
entirely incomprehensible to the other! 



90 THE LAST MILLION 

Each paused, incredulous; then, convinced 
there must be some mistake, began again. Then 
came another pause. A look of almost pathetic be- 
wilderment appeared upon each honest counte- 
nance — countenances almost identical in shade 
and feature. Then Joseph exclaimed: 

'^ Why, nigger, what so't of fancy nigger does yo' 
think yo' is?'' 

The gentleman in the fez retaliated with a query 
which, to judge by sound and intonation, was very 
similar to Joseph's. 

The look of bewilderment on Joseph's face 
gave place to a severe frown, which was immedi- 
ately reflected in that of his double. Each of these 
children of Ham now darkly suspected the other of 
imposture. 

'^Don' yo' go an' get fresh with me, nigger!" said 
Joseph, in a warning voice. 

^^Yakki-wakki-hikki-doolah!'' growled the other 
— or words to that effect. 

Joseph lost all patience. His voice suddenly shot 
up an octave higher, and he screamed : 

''You ain't no nigger at all! You're only a 
Af'ican!" 

Possibly it was in self-compensation for this dis- 
illusioning encounter that Joseph promptly mailed 
to his affianced in distant Lebanon, IlUnois, the 
letter which has been mentioned above. It began : 

Well, honey, we has arrived in France, and this war sure 
is fierce. Every time I steps outside my dugout I wades up 
to my knees in blood. . . . 



CHAPTER NINE 

THE EXILES 

So tremendous was America's response when in 
the sprmg of this year the call came to her from the 
Western Front to hurry, so overwhelming the host 
which she sent over, that our chief difficulty to-day 
is not to withstand the Hun, but to find a vacant 
spot on his carcass to hit. 

We have been in France for over a month now, 
but so far our services as a unit have not been re- 
quired in the Line. But we are acclimatized by this 
time. The days of our green youth in the big camps 
back home have faded away as though they never 
had been. In this Old- World, constricted country 
it requires quite an effort of meniory to recall those 
spacious days upon our own open, rolling plains 
and hillsides. Gone are the great streets of wooden 
two-storey huts, with their electric fight, steam 
heat, and hot showers; the various social centres; 
the roaring Liberty Theatre and the Hostess 
House; the candy-stores and the shoe-shine par- 
lours. They are but a memory, blurred by four 
months of incredibly novel experience. 

To-day we sleep in French barracks — bleak, 
cheerless bmldings, redolent of floor-soap and white- 
wash; or in bifiets up and down a little village; or 
in some great barn, on straw, or under the summer 
stars in our dog-tents. We perform our ablutions in 
the open air, mainly at a farm pump or street hy- 



92 THE LAST MILLION 

drant, to the diversion of the female population. 
For recreation we still play baseball; for creature 
comforts we can turn to the Red Cross, or the 
Y.M.C.A., or the Knights of Columbus, or the 
Salvation Army, or the Jewish Welfare Board. 
There is also a French institution, known as Le 
Foyer du Soldat, where we consort with grave- 
faced, courteous poilus. We have encountered no 
British troops so far. They are farther north: sev- 
eral of our units have gone up to be brigaded with 
them. 

So here we are — right here in France — ab- 
sorbing new atmosphere through our pores. We 
are on a strict war footing, too. Everything, as the 
Colonel has explained to us, must be ^'just so." If 
you are ordered to be at a certain cross-road ten 
miles away, with your company, at 9 a.m. to-mor- 
row morning, with picks and shovels and two days' 
rations, you have to be there — just there — not 
at 9.05, with picks but no shovels, or with one day's 
rations instead of two, but at 9 precisely, with the 
exact outfit prescribed. The accomplishment of 
this feat is not so easy as it sounds: it involves 
much study, and occasional weariness of the flesh. 
You must be able not only to read a map correctly, 
but to visualize from a scrutiny of the same the 
exact nature of the country through which you are 
going to lead your company — whether it is hilly 
or no; whether the hill runs up or down; whether 
there are grade crossings or narrow bridges or one- 
way roads to be considered; whether a ford marked 
''Passable for troops" is also passable for the 



THE EXILES 93 

wheeled transport which carries your picks and 
shovels. All these possibilities make for delay — 
sometimes most excusable delay. But excuses 
are not accepted in war-time. Either you succeed 
or you fail: there is no intermediate stage. Boone 
Cruttenden's plan — and a very good one too — is 
to try experiments, not upon his men, but upon 
himself. In his spare moments he is accustomed to 
figure out, with the aid of the map and a mekome- 
ter, how long it would take a body of armed men to 
cover some given distance on the map, having re- 
gard to the possibility of — 

(1) Unexpectedly heavy going. 

(2) Roads blocked by other troops. 

(3) Having to scatter or take cover, owing to enemy 

aeroplanes. 

(4) The cussedness of transport mules. 

(5) Other visitations of Providence. 

He then enlists the services of a friend — usually 
Jim Nichols — and the pair proceed to test their 
own theories by performing the journey in person, 
at the pace of a marching company, correcting their 
calculations as they proceed. It is upon such painful 
foundations that your true soldier is built up. 

And discipline is rigid. If the top sergeant in- 
structs Mr. Joe McCarthy to empty certain buck- 
ets of kitchen garbage, and that right speedily, Joe 
no longer explains that he is here not to empty 
garbage, but to make the world safe for Democracy. 
He simply departs with the buckets, somewhat 
dazed at his own alacrity. War has her victories, no 
less than Peace. 



.94 THE LAST MILLION 

Saluting is universal now. We take a pride in it. 
Formerly we did not. Our independent natures 
rebelled against its suggestion of servility. But we 
have recently realized that a slave is a man who 
bends his knee and bows his head. A soldier does 
neither. He holds himself erect, looks his brother in 
arms straight in the face, and exchanges with him 
the proudest of all masonic signs. 

We are much interested in the saluting methods 
of our Allies. The Frenchman salutes with the 
open hand, palm forward and fingers pointing up- 
ward. The Britisher brings his elbow into play, and 
salutes with horizontal forearm. Both French and 
British officers salute in different fashion from 
their men. 

The British practise strange refinements of their 
own. Bond, the stout medical Major whom last we 
met travelling in a railway compartment from 
Liverpool, — yes, we may as well divulge it ; it was 
Liverpool, — was one of the first Americans to 
make a serious attempt to grapple with the funda- 
mental laws of the subject. Almost immediately on 
arrival he was sent to Belgium, with other mem- 
bers of the craft, to render invaluable assistance at 
a British Casualty Clearing-Station not far from 
Ypres — that graveyard of British soldiers and 
German hopes. He observed with approval the 
punctilious, if complicated, fashion in which all 
ranks greeted one another in public places, and set 
himself to take notes and master the combina- 
tion. Two months later, a prey to overstrain, he 
took a week's leave in Paris, where he encountered 



THE EXILES 95 

that eccentric but companionable Anglo-American, 
Major Floyd. 

They exchanged greetings and news. Floyd, it 
seemed, was now attached to the American Army, 
having been appointed a liaison officer. Then Bond 
said: ''Floyd, I am glad I met you. You are one of 
the most lucid exponents of British institutions in 
captivity, and I want you to explain to me just 
half a dozen or so of the most common variations 
of the British military salute." 

Floyd nodded sympathetically. 

''I know," he said. ''It seems complicated, but 
all you have to do is to get hold of the fundamental 
idea. Here it is. The one thing a British soldier 
must never do is to remove his cap." 

"Why?" 

"If he takes it off, he is 'improperly dressed'; 
and that practically disqualifies him from 'getting 
on with the war' for the time being. So he remains 
covered, indoors and out, except in church and 
during certain portions of the burial service. In 
fact, at moments of ceremonial intensity, such as 
the playing of the National Anthem, when civilians 
are reverently baring their heads, the soldier has 
to grab his cap and put it on quickly." 

"Otherwise he cannot come to the salute?" 

"Cannot? Must not! It is a military crime to 
salute bareheaded. It says so in the book." 

"I see," said Bond musingly. "That accounts 
for the fact that if I happened to meet a hospital 
orderly around the Casualty Clearing-Station with- 
out his cap, he never saluted me?" 



96 THE LAST MILLION 

'Trecisely/' 

'^Then why — " Bond hesitated. 

^'1 know your trouble/' said Floyd, fixing his 
melancholy gaze upon the Major's puzzled face. 
^'Instead of saluting you, he gave you a glare of 
withering contempt?'' 

'^He certainly did. But how did you know?" 

^^ Because that was what it looked like — to you. 
In reality the poor fellow was only doing what the 
Book says. He was turning his head 'smartly 
towards the officer, while passing.'" 

''That explains quite a lot. I was afraid it was I 
who was in wrong in some way, and he wanted to 
tell me so, but was prevented by the bonds of dis- 
cipline from doing more than give me a good fierce 
look." 

"His proceeding was perfectly regular," said 
Floyd gravely. "But that is not all. A British sol- 
dier is debarred from saluting not only when bare- 
headed, but whenever he is occupied in such a man- 
ner as to prevent him doing the thing in proper 
style. For instance, if you meet Tommy carrying a 
bucket or riding a bicycle, he merely gives his cele- 
brated head-jerk, without employing his hand at 
all." 

"That is a good notion," said Bond. "I shall 
adopt it. Last week I was riding a bicycle myself, 
and I nearly broke my collar-bone through letting 
go with one hand in order to salute a Brigadier- 
General in a muddy lane. Luckily I fell soft!" 

"It's a carefully thought-out system," agreed 
Floyd, "and perfectly sound. Nearly everything in 



THE EXILES 97 

the British Drill Book is — so far as it goes. In 
nineteen fourteen that Drill Book put into the field 
the finest army that has ever fought under the Brit- 
ish flag. Unfortunately very few of the nation had 
read it. When the War broke out there were still 
some forty millions of us who regarded it as a purely 
humorous publication. If they had listened to Lord 
Roberts and absorbed its gritty contents, instead 
of lapping up predigested pap from the politicians, 
perhaps there would have been no War. Anyway, 
some of my best friends would have been alive to- 
day. Those were the fellows. Bond! In the First 
Battle of Ypres three divisions of them, dead beat 
after eight weeks' continuous fighting, stopped four 
fresh German Army Corps. The Drill Book taught 
them how to do that. They have mostly gone West 
now; but I for one will salute their memory so long 
as I live, cap or no cap!" 

We are marching up the Loire now, getting nearer 
the front of things every day. Nantes is behind us 
— an ancient city astride the river, its historic 
quays crowded with American shipping and its 
wharves piled high with the products of those two 
mighty Allied bases, Chicago and Minneapolis. 

The Loire is a pleasant stream. It is neither so 
broad as the Mississippi nor so deep as the Hudson, 
but it will serve. Shoals and sand-bars are frequent 
upon its surface, but on the opposite side the bank 
rises up to a quite respectable height, pleasantly 
reminiscent, at one or two points, of the Palisades. 

And the towns we pass through are fascinating. 



98 THE LAST MILLION 

For one thing, they come upon you suddenly. 
American towns absorb you gradually. First an 
outlying suburb, with maybe the terminus of the 
street-car system. Then an untidy No Man's Land, 
neither cultivated nor inhabited — mainly vacant 
building lots — decorated along the route with 
huge advertisements, chiefly of automobile acces- 
sories. Here and there you 'pass a gasoline sta- 
tion or roadhouse. After that, by degrees, trim 
white wooden houses, with shady piazzas ; increas- 
ing traffic ; and finally, fifteen-storey office-buildings, 
shops, hotels, and the roar of the town. 

But in Central France these premonitory symp- 
toms are lacking. Your company tramps along the 
winding road beside the river, through country cul- 
tivated to its last yard — a country of hedges and 
ditches and enclosed fields. A bend in the stream, 
and lo! before you rises a venerable city, piled up 
on the ground rising from the river, with ancient 
bridges spanning the stream and a grey cathedral 
crowning the whole. There are no suburbs, no ad- 
vertising boards, no gasoline stations. The sea of 
green turf continues to the edge of the city, and 
very often laps against ramparts a thousand years 
old. You march in under the resounding arch of an 
ancient gateway. 

The streets are narrow; the gradient is frequently 
such as to discommode any one save a native of 
Lynchburg, Virginia. The shops are small, and the 
proprietors thereof appear to transact most of their 
business upon the doorstep. The inhabitants are 
friendly, especially the children. But most welcome 



THE EXILES 99 

sight of all, wherever we march, and through what- 
ever town or village we pass, there are familiar 
greetings awaiting us, in the form of signs over 
doorways or at street-corners, thus — A.E.F. Com- 
manding GeneraVs Headquarters; or, To A.P.M.'s 
Office; or, American Red Cross Headquarters. And at 
each street-crossing, upright, sunburned, and im- 
mensely alert, stands an American Mihtary Police- 
man, directing the tide of country carts, errant 
cows, antediluvian street-cars, despatch-riders, 
motor-cycles, and marching troops, with all the 
solemn austerity of a New York Traffic Cop. 

If the American soldier has one characteristic 
which singles him out from the rest of the AUies, it 
is that Home is seldom absent from his thoughts — 
possibly because he is farther away from home than 
any one else. It is true that more water rolls be- 
tween, say, France and Australia, than between 
France and America. But then to the Australian 
England itself is Home. In his own land he still re- 
fers to her as such. The true exile in this war is the 
American-born Doughboy. In most cases he has 
never been outside his own great and beautiful land 
before, for the simple reason that he has always 
found abundant elbow-room therein; and if the de- 
sire to roam has ever possessed him, he has been 
able to gratify it without stepping off the soil of his 
country or even beyond the border of his own State. 
Therein he is in different case from the inhabitants 
of those congested islets. Great Britain and Ireland, 
many of whose younger sons are thrust out in early 
Ufe by the concomitant forces of natural increase 



100 THE LAST MILLION 

and external pressure from the land of their birth 
to seek a living in distant portions of the globe — 
and in so doing have quite inadvertently created 
that unmethodical, loosely connected organization 
known as the British Empire, which is either a fed- 
eration of free communities, providing decent gov- 
ernment where otherwise there would be no govern- 
ment at all, or else a voracious octopus, according 
to the way you look at it. 

But the American soldier, being for the most part 
familiar with no country but his own, adapts himself 
less happily to foreign conditions than Britons who 
have been schooled by stern necessity to make 
themselves equally comfortable i'n Wei-Hai-Wei or 
Wigan. Add to this the natural outspoken Ameri- 
can affection for, and belief in, American institu- 
tions and mode of life, and you will understand why 
American troops on the march through Europe will 
cheer themselves hoarse at the sight of such re- 
minders of Home as an American pohceman direct- 
ing the traffic in a French town, or an imported 
American locomotive puffing along a French rail- 
road. 

And there is one other American institution for 
which the American soul thirsts in this barren land 
— the American newspaper. Behold us billeted for 
a day or two in the little town of Crapaudville-sur- 
Loire. Existence there is a series of queues. In the 
morning we arise right early and make a careful 
toilet. For this purpose we form a queue, or water- 
line, at the town pump. This is not a lengthy busi- 
ness, because it does not take long to fill a pannikin 



THE EXILES 101 

with water : the only interruptions which occur are 
due to natural gallantry, as when an attractive 
Ally arrives to fill her family kettle. After that 
comes breakfast-time, which entails standing in an- 
other queue, or chow-line. After that as many of us 
as can contrive to do so hurry off to stand in the 
most important queue of the day — the news-line. 
A train from Paris, of arthritic tendencies and ir- 
regular habits, is due about noon, bearing news- 
papers, which are doled out at a price of twenty- 
five centimes. 

There are, of course, sharp degrees of compari- 
son. The great Paris morning journals are nothing 
in our young lives. They are wTitten in a language 
which we do not know, and their headlines are lack- 
ing in enterprise. The Paris issue of the London Daily 
Mail is better. It reaches us in the form of a special 
American edition, which caters generously to our 
national predilection for type several inches high. 
But beyond that it does not go. Blossom and hlos- 
som and blossom, hut never the promise of fruit! The 
reading matter below the headlines is constrained, 
lacking in pep — dead stuff. At least, so Joe Mc- 
Carthy says. The Paris editions of the New York 
Herald and Chicago Tribune furnish more nourish- 
ment, although in these days of paper famine they 
are sadly attenuated affairs — mere single sheets, 
sometimes. Then there is our own A.E.F. weekly — 
The Stars and Stripes. It is ably conducted and full 
of meat; but at the best it is only an official publi- 
cation, mainly about the War. And it was not 
printed in America. What we crave for is home 



102 THE LAST MILLION 

news — home gossip — home advertisements. A 
single copy of an American Sunday newspaper, 
with comic supplement complete, would fetch its 
weight in dollar bills over here. Our spirits yearn 
to participate once more in the Bringing up of 
Father, or the fratricidal rivalries of Mutt and 
Jeff; or to witness the perennial discomfitures of 
those two intensely human impostors, Percy and 
Ferdy. Even those nasty little Boche abortions, 
the Katzenjammer Kids, would be something. 

The happiest man is he who receives once in a 
while a copy of his local newspaper from home. 
These come rarely enough, for second-class mail 
matter is incurring mysterious casualties these 
days. 

However, one of these priceless packages arrived 
not long ago for Eddie Gillette, all the way from a 
little town in the Northwest. Eddie tore off the 
wrapper, and almost set his teeth into the paper. 
Everything was there for which his soul hungered 
— news about America, about his own town, about 
people whom he knew personally — conveyed by 
means of the arresting headline, the pointed 
phrase, and the intellectual pemmican of the heav- 
ily leaded summary. The War news, of course, was 
weeks old, but Ed devoured it rapturously. He 
knew now how the War was really going. 

^'This guy Allenby must be some dandy fighter," 
he observed to Al Thompson, looking up. 

^'Sure, Ed!" replied Al pleasantly. ''Why?" 

''He's been doing fine in the Holy Land, See 
what it says here." 



THE EXILES 103 

Ed held up the newspaper for Al to see, and 
pointed to the head of a column: 

BRITISH CRUSADERS IN NAZARETH 

ALLENBY WINS JESUS CHRIST'S HOME TOWN 
FROM TURKS 

^'That^s the goods!" remarked Ed approvingly, 
as he folded the paper with reverent care and tucked 
it inside his shirt. ''The feller that writes that stuff 
has gotten the real idea for a story. The others 
over here" — designating apparently the editors 
of the London Times and Paris Matin — ''ain't 
got nothing to them. No, sir I They don't write 
nothing but small-town stuff!" 

"You said it, Ed!" agreed Al. 

"All the same," observed the critic, rising and 
stretching his giant limbs, "this yer reading the 
papers from home may give a feller a grand and 
glorious feeling, but it makes him feel mighty lone- 
some and homesick too." He raised a pair of great 
fists heavenward. "Oh, Boy I when I get back 
home after this War, if the Statue of Liberty ever 
wants to see Ed Gillette again, she '11 have to turn 
around to do it! " 



CHAPTER TEN 

S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 

To most of US hitherto the letters S.O.S. have signi- 
fied calamity of some kind — appeals for succour 
from sinking liners, and the like. Our British liai- 
son officers, too, tell us that S.O.S. is the epithet 
applied to the rockets which are always kept in po- 
sition in British front-line trenches, to be discharged 
as an urgent intimation to the gunners behind that 
the enemy are attacking in mass. 

But in the American Army S.O.S. means '' Serv- 
ice of Supply." It denotes, not panic, but order, 
and control, and abundance. It covers the whole 
chainwork of activity known in most armies as the 
'^ Lines of Communication.'' The town where we 
find ourselves to-day is a great S.O.S. centre. On its 
outskirts lie mushroom cities of huts and sheds. 
Here is a great cold-storage depot : there are eight 
thousand tons of frozen beef in this single building. 
Here is a big station for assembling aeroplanes, 
where de Haviland planes of British design are 
being fitted with Liberty engines. Through the town 
itself there flows by night and by day a never-failing 
stream of food and munitions and replacement 
troops. Needless to say the town lies upon one of 
the main roads along which the Race to Berlin is 
being run. 

Back along that road, alas! streams another 
current — a counter-current — of wastage, mate- 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 105 

rial and human. Upon its surface is borne all the 
dreadful litter of the battle-field — rusty rifles, 
damaged equipment, blood-soaked uniforms. Here 
is a mighty depot, which handles and repairs 
such wreckage. These buildings have all been con- 
structed within the past few months. It would 
take you half a day to walk through them. In at 
one end of the establishment goes a squaUd torrent 
of torn clothing, unmated shoes, leaky rubber 
trench boots, odds and ends of equipment. In due 
course, after a drastic series of laundering, sorting, 
patching, stitching, or vulcanizing experiences — 
mainly at the hands of a twittering army corps 
of Frenchwomen — each item in this melancholy 
jumble finds itself reincarnated in various store- 
houses in the form of properly assorted pairs of 
boots and shoes, neat second-hand uniforms, and 
complete sets of equipment. Nothing is wasted. 
Stetson hats damaged beyond repair are cut up 
into soles for hospital slippers. Uniforms too badly 
ripped for decent renovation are patched, dyed 
grass-green, and issued to German prisoners. 

There are some thousands of these prisoners, 
with more coming. When they arrive, their pre- 
vailing tint is grey. Their uniforms are grey, by 
nature; their knee-high boots are grey, with dust; 
their faces are grey, with exhaustion and grime. 
These human dereficts are submitted to very 
much the same process of restoration as the dam- 
aged uniforms and equipment. They are paraded, 
stripped, and marched into the first of a series of 
renovation chambers. They pass under hot show- 



106 THE LAST MILLION 

ers; they spend a salutary period in what is deh- 
cately described as the ''delousing chamber"; they 
are then provided, first with underwear, then with 
shoes, then with one of the grass-green uniforms 
aforesaid, and finally with a cooking and toilet out- 
fit. They are shaved and their hair is cut; they 
are medically examined; they are card-indexed; a 
register is made of their trades; they are housed in 
comfortable wooden huts within a great barbed- 
wire enclosure; and within a few days they are at 
work upon whatever tasks they happen to be best 
qualified for, earning twenty centimes a day. They 
are fed upon the rations of American and British 
soldiers, including white bread — the only white 
bread in Europe. 

Perhaps some of them, before they came here, 
saw the Alhed prisoners in Germany — starved, 
robbed, beaten, and forced to work in salt-mines 
or shell-areas until death made an end of their 
afflictions. These languishing grass-green captives 
must bless the Geneva Convention, and marvel at 
the uncultured folk who still stand by its provisions. 

A camp of German prisoners practically runs 
itself. Fritz knows when he is well off. There is no 
insubordination. Men come rigidly to attention 
when an officer passes. The routine work is super- 
vised by German sergeants. In this particular 
camp you may enter one large hut and behold 
some fifty German prisoners engaged upon clerical 
work connected with camp administration — 
ration indents, card-indexes, and the like. It is a 
task after the German heart. Each prisoner is 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 107 

absorbed in his occupation. He can hardly bring 
himself to rise to his feet when the door is thrown 
open for the Officejkof the Day, and Achtung I 
is called. His pig's e"s gleam contentedly behind 
his spectacles. And well the}^ may! A German de- 
livered from the German Army and permitted to 
sit all day and make a card index of himself may 
be excused for imagining that he has got as near 
Heaven as a German is ever hkely to get. 

^'When this War is over," observes Mr. Joe 
McCarthy, gazing meditatively through the 
barbed wire, '^I guess someb'dy will have to 
chase these ducks back to Germany with a gun!'' 

Frenchwomen are not the only representatives 
of their sex in the American Expeditionary Force. 
There are hundreds of American women too, from 
every walk of American life. There are the hospital 
nurses, the stenographers, the telephone operators, 
the motor-drivers — all duly enrolled members of 
the Regular Service. Then there are the women of 
the Auxiliary Forces — the Red Cross, and its 
sister organizations — all doing a man's share, 
and something over. Their work is not supposed, 
of course, to take them up into the battle zone. 
They serve at the Base, or on Lines of Commu- 
nication. But in these days of Big Berthas and 
promiscuous bombing raids, no one is safe. The 
battle zone is the extent of ground which an 
aeroplane can cover, as the inhabitants of London 
know to their cost. Some of the worst devastation 
in France may be witnessed at certain British hos- 



108 THE LAST MILLION 

pital bases on the French coast, miles from any 
battle-hne. 

Still, women have been known to find their way 
into the Line. As some student of nature has told 
us, ^^It is hard to keep a squirrel off the ground." 

One summer morning an old acquaintance of ours, 
Miss Frances Lane, and her crony, or accomplice. 
Miss Helen Ryker, came off night duty at their 
hospital and sniffed the fresh air luxuriously. 
They had twelve hours of complete freedom from 
responsibility before them — a circumstance not 
in itself calculated to correct Miss Lane's natural 
Ughtness of ballast. 

In most hospitals nurses coming off night duty 
are not unreasonably expected to spend at least 
some portion of the following day in bed. But youth- 
ful vitahty, abetted by summer sunshine and a 
martial atmosphere, make a formidable combina- 
tion against the forces of comonon sense. This 
particular hospital was only thirty miles from the 
Line. On still days the turmoil of the guns could 
be heard quite plainly. 

After breakfasting, Miss Lane took her friend 
by the elbow and led her to the great military map 
on the wall, with the position of the battle-Une 
clearly defined upon it by an irregular frontier 
of red worsted, and said: 

''Helen, listen! Just where are we on this little 
old map?'' 

Miss Ryker, who possessed the unusual feminine 
accomplishment of being able to read maps and 
railroad time-tables, laid a slender finger-tip upon 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 109 

the blue chalk-mark which designated the geo- 
graphical position of the hospital. 

^' There/' she said. 

'^And/' pursued Miss Lane, in a low voice, 
''where do we go from heref^^ 

Miss Ryker, who was a girl of few words, began 
to measure out distances with her finger and thumb. 

''The nearest point to us," she announced at 
last, ''is a place called Delficelles." 

"Delficelles? Our boys captured it not long ago," 
said Frances in confirmation. "I guess the 
trenches must lie just beyond." 

On one point she was right : Delficelles had been 
captured by an American Division a fortnight 
previously. On the other she was wrong, for a 
reason which will presently appear. 

"We are going to visit them," continued Miss 
Lane. 

"How do we get there?" enquired her practical 
friend. 

Miss Lane looked stealthily round, as a pre- 
caution against eavesdroppers. Then she smiled 
seraphically. 

"I guess we can do it on our faces," she re- 
marked. 

To get up into the Line — that tortured strip 
of territory, some five miles wide, which winds 
from the North Sea to the Alps, and within which 
two solid walls of men have faced one another 
for nearly four years — there are two recognized 
courses of procedure. One is to be a member of an 



110 THE LAST MILLION 

armed party — an Infantry Battalion, say, going 
up to take over a sector of trenches. There is no 
doubting the bona fides of sueh an excursion. 

The other course is incumbent upon solitary 
individuals like despatch-riders and unchaperoned 
civilians. These must have a much-signed and 
countersigned pass. Even Staff Officers are not 
exempt from this law. That lesson was learned as 
far back as nineteen fourteen, when German offi- 
cers, arrayed in the uniform of the British General 
Staff, kindly accompanied the British Army during 
the retreat from Mons and added to the already 
considerable difficulties of a hectic situation by 
directing troops down wrong roads and issuing 
orders of a demoralizing nature. 

So now it is almost as difficult for an unauthor- 
ized person to get into the fighting area as into 
the Royal Yacht Squadron, or the New York 
Subway at 6 p.m. Mesdames Lane and Ryker 
were obviously neither an armed party nor chap- 
eroned civilians. But young and attractive females 
have means of attaining their ends which are 
denied to the rest of creation. Ask not how the feat 
was achieved. Enquire not the names of the sus- 
ceptible lorry-drivers who succumbed, nor of the 
tall young military policeman at Dead Dog Corner 
who melted incontinently beneath the appeal of 
Miss Lane's blue eyes. Let it suffice that by early 
afternoon our two runagates found themselves 
safely deposited in what was left of the village of 
Delficelles. (By the way, the local soldiery pro- 
nounced it '' Dillpickle," so we will let it go at that.) 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 111 

Having reached the haven of their desire, they 
found, to their extreme satisfaction and reUef, 
that it seemed to be no part of any one's duty to 
turn them out. Indeed, such officers as they en- 
countered punctiHously saluted their uniform, 
while the rank and file addressed friendly and 
appreciative greetings to them. One enthusiast 
produced a pocket camera, and insisted upon per- 
forming a ceremony which he described as ^'spoil- 
ing a film" upon the precious pair. 

The village itself lay in a hollow behind a low 
ridge, and was in what may be described as moder- 
ate ruins. One learns to make these distinctions 
in the shell-area. Roughly, there are three grades. 
Villages whose roofs are riddled by shrapnel and 
whose windows have ceased to exist, but whose 
walls are still standing, may be regarded as prac- 
tically intact, and are much sought after as places 
of residence. At the other end of the scale come the 
villages which were dehberately obliterated by 
Brother Boche during one of his great retreats. 
There are many such in the neighbourhood of 
Bapaume and Peronne. To-day not one stone of 
these remains upon another. Not a tree is to be 
seen. It is only by accepting the evidence of the 
map that you are able to realize that you are in 
a village at all. The main street runs between high 
banks, overgrown by weeds and nettles. If you 
part these and look underneath, you will find a 
subsoil of brick rubble. 

At the cross-roads in the centre, where once the 
church stood, you will find a miUtary sign-board 



112 THE LAST MILLION 

giving the map-reference of the village, followed 
perhaps by a postscript, thus: 



Z.17.C.25. 

THIS WAS 

VILLERS CARBONNEL 



Fuit! 

The village of Dillpickle occupied an inter- 
mediate position between these two extremes. 
Some of the houses were standing; others were 
merely a pile of disintegrated bricks and mortar. 
Where one of these ruins had overflowed into the 
street and obstructed the fairway, the debris had 
been cleared away and built up into a neat wall, 
guarding the sidewalk from further irruption. 
Such houses as still stood were inhabited, chiefly 
in the lower regions, by American artillerymen 
and the Infantry Brigade in reserve. The village 
was rich in German notice-boards — black stencil- 
ling on plain wood — announcing that here was 
the residence of the Kommandant, or here a shelter 
from bombardment for so many Manner, or that 
here it was Verhoten for the common herd to go. 
Most of these were now pasted over with notices 
and orders in a different, and healthier, language. 

Our friends collected a German notice-board 
apiece as a souvenir, and proceeded to ransack 
the village for further booty. Miss Ryker, who 
was domestically minded, gleaned two forks, a 
spoon, and some cups and saucers. Miss Lane, 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 113 

caring for none of these things, appropriated a 
small mirror. Presently she announced : 

'^I guess we'll go up to the trenches now, 
Helen. They must be just over the hill, beyond 
that wood on the sky-line/' 

But Miss Lane, as already noted, was wrong. 
The trenches did not he just over the hill, for the 
very good reason that there were no trenches. We 
have grown so accustomed during this War to em- 
ploying ^ Frenches" as a synonym for ''battle- 
line'' that we are apt to overlook the fact that it is 
possible to fight upon the surface of the earth. For 
a long time both the Allies and the Hun suffered 
from a disease called ''Trenchitis," induced by an 
intensive experience of high explosive and machine- 
gun bullets. If a force wished to defend itself, it 
produced picks and shovels and dug itself in. If it 
wished to attack, it dug an advanced ''jumping- 
off" trench in the dead of night, approached by 
saps and tunnels, and so made the open space to be 
covered in the assault as narrow as possible. This 
is a useful and economical way of fighting, espe- 
cially when your troops are not sufficiently numer- 
ous to warrant prodigality. But it wastes much 
valuable time; and since the day when the entire 
American Nation was placed at the disposal of the 
Allies as a reinforcement, it has been found possi- 
ble to employ other methods. Down South, on the 
Alsace-Lorraine front, where a lightly held outpost 
line runs for more than a hundred miles toward 
Belfort, trench warfare is still fashionable. But in 
the Argonne, where most of the fighting takes 



114 THE LAST MILLION 

place in closely wooded country, we remain more 
or less above ground, maintaining touch with one 
another as best we can by means of an irregular 
chain of grass-pits or fortified shell-craters. 

So when our pair of truants reached the wood on 
the sky-line, and penetrated cautiously to the 
other side, they beheld no trenches. 

At their feet the road dropped steeply into a lit- 
tle valley, filled with woods which ran right up the 
slope beyond and disappeared into a smoky mist 
on the opposite crest. The sun had not fulfilled its 
early promise, and had disappeared by noon. A 
small drizzling rain was beginning to fall. 

Helen Ryker, who loved her personal comforts, 
drew her blue cloak more closely round her, and 
shivered. 

^'They don't have any trenches /iere," she an- 
nounced, in aggrieved tones. 

^^They are in the woods down in the valley," 
Miss Lane assured her. ^^ You can hear the firing.'' 

You certainly could. Up to their ears from the 
undergrowth on every side rose the mutterings of 
warfare — solitary rifle-shots, and the intermittent 
pup-pupping of machine guns. Down in the valley, 
at the foot of the road, they could see a stream. 
The road had once crossed it by a bridge; but the 
bridge was now a ruin, and the road had been di- 
verted so as to cross higher up, by some sort of pon- 
toon. 

Not a human being was in sight. One of the 
strangest characteristics of modern warfare — 
warfare in which millions of men are employed 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 115 

where formerly hundreds sufficed — is the entire 
invisibility of the combatants. In these days of 
aeroplanes and magnifying periscopes no man ever 
makes himself more conspicuous than need be. 
A hundred years ago soldiers went into action in 
brightly coloured coats and flashing accoutre- 
ments. Now their uniforms imitate the colours of 
nature — the colours of grass and earth. Guns are 
painted to look like logs of wood. If a sniper wishes 
to do a little business from a tree-top or a thicket, 
he not infrequently paints himself green as a pre- 
liminary. 

*^It's lonesome here!" continued Miss Ryker. 

^'I expect we shall find the boys presently," re- 
phed the undefeated Frances. ''My gracious, 
Helen, what was that?" 

Over their heads — quite close, it seemed — v 
sailed something invisible, with a weary sigh. It 
was a howitzer shell fired from an American bat- 
tery five miles behind them. The sound of its pas- 
sage ceased, but almost directly afterward a column 
of greenish-grey smoke spouted up from the 
wooded hillside opposite, followed a few seconds 
later by a heavy detonation. 

Helen and Frances found themselves unaffectedly 
gripping hands. 

^'What is it?" asked Helen tremulously. 

One of Miss Lane's most compelling character- 
istics was that she was never at a loss for an answer. 

''That? That's artillery fire, I guess. That over 
there is the smoke of a big gun." 

As usual, she was partially correct. Wliat they 



116 THE LAST MILLION 

saw and heard was, indeed, artillery fire, but it 
was not the smoke of the gun, but the smoke of 
the shell bursting among the German machine- 
gun nests. 

^'German or American?" asked Helen. 

*' American, sure. Let's go on down this road, 
and see some more. It's a nice quiet road. There 
can't be any danger." 

In the shell-area on the Western Front the fact 
that a road is quiet does not by any means guaran- 
tee that it is ''nice." But the people who really 
enjoy war are those who have not been there before. 
The pair of adventurers set boldly off down the hill. 
As they started, a second contribution from the 
howitzer battery passed over their heads, with the 
lazy rustle which characterizes the descent of high- 
angle shells, and burst in the woods opposite, fifty 
yards to the right of the first. 

''There's another gun firing!" exclaimed Miss 
Lane, clasping her hands rapturously. "My, but 
I'm excited! C'm along, Helen!" 

They hurried down the road, observing with a 
pleasant thrill that the surface thereof was pitted 
with shell-holes. More experienced fire-eaters would 
have noted that some of these holes were of ex- 
tremely recent origin — a few hours old, in fact. 
Once or twice they paused to collect more souvenirs 
— shell-fuses and empty cartridge-cases. 

Distances viewed across a valley are deceptive, 
and their stroll down the road took longer than 
they expected. The rain was coming down harder 
than ever. 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 117 

"We ought to hit those trenches soon," said Miss 
Lane. 

"What are trenches like, anyway?" enquired 
Miss Ryker, a little peevishly. She was beginning to 
make heavy weather of the expedition under her 
cargo of crockery and expended ammunition. 

Miss Lane, whose acquaintance with trench war- 
fare had been derived mainly from the Movies, 
made no reply. She had stopped by the roadside to 
read a notice-board, nailed to what was left of a 
tree. It said: 

This road must not be used by troops during daylight. 

She nodded her head sagely. 

"That's why there is no one around," she re- 
marked. "What were you saying just now, Helen? " 

Miss Ryker had discovered a fresh grievance. 

" It seems to me that some of the firing has gotten 
behind us!" she said. 

The girls stood still, and listened. A third Amer- 
ican shell swung over their heads and burst in the 
woods opposite. Simultaneously came a sharp out- 
burst of machine-gun fire from the right — the 
right rear, in fact. 

"Maybe we have walked into a sort of bend in 
the line," suggested Frances. "They call it a sali- 
ent," she added professionally. "Why, if there 
are n't some of our boys at last! There . . . crossing 
that bridge!" 

She was right. As she spoke, two khaki-clad fig- 
ures emerged from the woods upon the opposite 
side of the stream below them and trotted briskly 



118 THE LAST MILLION 

across the pontoon bridge, in single file a few yards 
apart. Once across, they joined forces, and began 
to climb the hill in a more leisurely fashion. But it 
was noticeable that instead of coming up the road 
they kept a course roughly parallel to its direction 
— perhaps a hundred yards away. 

'^ Why should they go hiking through that mushy 
long grass, wetting themselves, when there is a 
good road right here? Aren't men just children f^^ 
observed Miss Ryker. 

^'Perhaps they don't know about the road," said 
Miss Lane charitably, ''We'll call them. Oh — 
Boys!" 

Her syren call had the desired effect — as well 
it might. The gentlemen addressed, both of whom 
were labouring up the slippery slope with bent 
heads, stopped suddenly, and looked about them. 
Next moment they were doubling heavily through 
the long grass in the direction of the road, making 
signals as they ran. They appeared agitated about 
something. 

''Come off that road!" shouted one of them, who 
was leading by ten yards, to the two female figures 
in the mist. ^'Quittez le chemini C'est dangereux! 
Beat it for here! Depechez-vous I As hard as you — 
well — I'll — be — " he swallowed something — 
''Frances Lanef'^ 

With a final bound, Boone Cruttenden, with a 
steel helmet on his head, a gas apparatus slung on 
his chest, and acute fear in his eyes, landed squarely 
in the ditch; then scrambled out upon the road. 

"Why — Boone?" began Frances affably. But, 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 119 

a grasp of iron fastened on her arm just above the 
elbow, and a badly frightened young man pro- 
ceeded to propel her, without ceremony, across the 
ditch and away from the road. 

"You fetch the other one. Major !^' he called 
over his shoulder. 

''I shall be charmed,^' replied an unmistakable 
English drawl. 

^^ Boone, listen!" protested Miss Lane breath- 
lessly, as she was towed sideways across the hill- 
side. "What are you — ? " 

But her escort merely muttered to himself, as 
they ran: 

"Can you beat it? Can you heat it?" 

Presently, having placed a distance of more than 
a hundred yards between itself and the road, the 
panting convoy was permitted to halt. 

"We will now continue our excursion up the 
hill," announced the English Major. "But we will 
keep off the road, if you ladies don't object. It is 
registered from top to bottom, you know." 

"Just what does that mean?" enquired Miss 
Lane, whose natural curiosity was coming back 
with her breath. 

"It means," replied the Major, removing a shin- 
ing monocle from his right eye and wiping it with 
a khaki handkerchief, "that the Boche has the 
range to every yard of it. As he usually searches 
it with H.E. and shrapnel every few hours, it is 
healthier to keep on the grass when going up and 
down this hill. Are we far enough away now, do you 
think, Cruttenden?" 



120 THE LAST MILLION 

" Ye-es. But it would be better to split into two 
parties, I should say. Less conspicuous — eh?" 

The Major readjusted his monocle, and replied 
solemnly: 

^' By all means. This young lady and I will extend 
another hundred yards to the left. Cruttenden, 
considering your tender years, you display a prom- 
ising acquaintance with tactics. Also diplomacy. 
So long!" 

So by force of tactical exigency, Frances Lane 
and Boone Cruttenden walked up the hillside in 
the rain together. Major Floyd and Miss Ryker 
were discernible in the failing daylight, keeping 
station on the left flank. 

''Now, tell me!" Boone and Frances began to- 
gether. Then they stopped. Boone smiled. 

^'Ladies first!" he said. 

But for once Frances preferred to be a listener. 

''No, Boone Cruttenden — you ! " she said. "Tell 
me what you are doing here, anyway." 

"I got a chance," explained Boone, "to come 
here with Major Floyd — he's our liaison officer 
with the British Mission back of the line — and 
have a look at this sector. The regiment may take 
it over next month. The Major knows the ground, 
and he took me down there" — he pointed back- 
wards over his shoulder — "to see our advanced 
posts." 

"Where are the trenches?" 

"Trenches? There are none. This is open war- 
fare. The Yanks and the Huns are mixed up to- 
gether in those woods, watching one another like 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 121 

cat and dog. We hold the stream, and some of the 
ground beyond. That pontoon bridge is covered 
by a concealed machine-gun post of ours, in case 
the Hun tries to rush it. It's probable he had 
direct observation on it: that is why the Major 
and I did not linger much as we came across. 
We're in a sort of pocket here. The German line 
bends around us. Some of their posts up in the 
woods have a clear view of the road, all the way up. 
Luckily visibility is bad to-day, or you might have 
been spotted. Now tell me what you are doing 
here!" 

Frances told him — as much as she thought 
he need know. 

''And where is your hospital located?" de- 
manded Boone. 

Miss Lane informed him. 

''That is more than thirty miles back!" cried 
Boone. 

"About that," agreed Miss Lane meekly. 

"Does any one know you are here? " 

"I hope not! I mean, no one — except you, 
Boone," replied Frances softly. 

The conscientious Boone made a last effort to 
maintain a judicial attitude. 

"Do you know you have committed a serious 
military offence?" he demanded fiercely. "Try- 
ing to get past sentries, and traffic police! Did 
you know that no women are allowed anywhere in 
the battle zone?" 

"Yes," said Miss Lane demurely. "That was 
why we came — to break a record!" 



122 THE LAST MILLION 

'^ And do you know that all this valley is liable to 
be searched with gas, and you have no gas-mask?" 

"I did n't know that," confessed the delinquent, 
''but I might have guessed it, I suppose. But I was 
dead tired of that old hospital, Boone, and I was 
just crazy to see the fighting!" 

''Crazy? That's just the word. You crazy, 
crazy child!" said Boone affectionately. "Did n't 
you know the chances you were taking?" 

"Yes," said Frances Lane. "But" — her eyes 
were raised to his for one devastating moment — 
"I knew I was safe the moment I saw you, Boone!" 

"Oh, Francie .'" murmured that utterly demoral- 
ized youth. 

"And where are your headquarters located, 
Major?" enquired Miss Ryker brightly. The con- 
versation had harped so far upon her own mis- 
demeanours, and she was anxious to introduce a 
fresh topic. 

"I live chiefly with the Division holding this 
sector," replied Major Floyd. " I am liaison officer." 

"Don't drop those cups. Just what does a 
liaison officer do?" 

"I act as bell-hop between the local British 
Mission and the Americans. I go around paging 
Generals and Staff Officers — and everything," 
replied the Major. 

"There are no Generals here," Miss Ryker 
pointed out. 

"No. To-day I am having a vacation. Boone 
Cruttenden's Division are in Corps Reserve near 



S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE 123 

by, so I undertook to bring him up here and give 
him his first view of the Line." 

^^How did you get here?'' enquired Miss Ryker, 
who had not initiated the present conversation for 
nothing. 

^^On a Staff car.'' 

''An automobile?" 

''Yes." 

''Where is it?" 

"Behind that wood at the top of the hill." 

"Then," announced Miss Ryker, coming to the 
point, "you will be able to give us two poor girls 
a ride home." 

"It's — it's twenty-five miles out of our way," 
said Floyd feebly. "Besides, Boone and I have our 
reputations to consider. He is young, and might 
live it down, but think of me! People would say 
I was old enough to know better." 

"Think of usT^ countered Miss Ryker; "if we 
can't get back, and the Matron finds that Frances 
and I have been playing hookey!" She followed up 
her appeal by a faint sob. 

Major Floyd dropped the teacups and raised 
his hands above his head. 

' ' Kamerad ! " he groaned. 

Whoo-oo-oo-oO' UMP! 

A long overdue shell from a German field battery 
came shrieking over the tree-tops behind them 
and landed squarely in the road, two hundred 
yards to their right. 

"You're quite safe," announced the Major, 
patting four fingers which he had suddenly dis- 



124 THE LAST MILLION 

covered on the sleeve of his Burberry. ^'That one 
is too far away to hurt us. There will probably be 
more, but Fritz won't shell away from the road. 
His imagination is not elastic." 

'^ What about Frances and Captain Cruttenden? " 
said Helen. ^' They are nearer the road than we are. 
Would that shell be able — ?" 

Major Floyd rubbed his misty monocle and 
examined the two figures to his right. 

''They don't appear to have heard it," he an- 
nounced, and shook his head mournfully. 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 

THE LINE 

Most of us in our extreme youth, before we leave 
home and adventure upon the Great Unknown of 
school life — the most formidable ordeal, by the 
way, that the majority of us ever have to face — 
endeavour to prepare ourselves for what we imag- 
ine lies before us by a course of study. 

We devour stories about schools and schoolboys, 
with an application most unusual in the young. We 
have all the tenderfoot's fear of being considered a 
tenderfoot, so we take pains to acquire the school- 
boy tone; schoolboy atmosphere; schoolboy slang. 
The exploits of the hero after he becomes ''Cock 
of the School'' — whatever that may be — and 
leads the football team to victory, are dismissed by 
us as too lofty and distant for our achievement. We 
are much more interested — more painfully inter- 
ested — in his experiences as a freshman or fag. 
We endeavour to pick up tips as to what a boy 
entering school for the first time should do, and 
more particularly what he should not do, in order 
to avoid being tossed in a blanket or sent to Cov- 
entry, or labelled ''sissy," or "cry-baby" — and 
all the other vague terrors which have kept pro- 
spective Cocks of the School awake at night since 
the dawn of Education. 

This intensive course of self -preparation has one 
drawback. None of the things described in the 



126 THE LAST MILLION 

books ever happen at the school to which we are 
ultimately sent. We have plenty of surprises, 
plenty of rough experiences; but none quite of the 
kind anticipated. 

American soldiers, arriving on the Western 
Front in the fourth year of the War, feel them- 
selves in very much the same position as the self- 
conscious adventurer described above. 

Ever since — in some cases, before — our coun- 
try came in, we have been schooling ourselves for 
the day when we should find ourselves Over Here, 
among veteran soldiers. Methods have varied, of 
course. Some of us have followed every turn of the 
operations in official summaries and technical 
articles. To such, the War has been a glorified 
game, we will say, of scientific football. Others — 
Miss Sissy Smithers, for instance — have educated 
themselves upon more popular lines — from the 
Sunday newspapers, or illustrated magazines of 
the domestic variety, in which healthy patriotism 
and '^ heart interest" are not fettered by any petty 
considerations of technical possibility. 

Over here. Disillusionment awaits both these 
enthusiasts. The student of tactics soon realizes 
the difference between fighting a battle in imagi- 
nation and in reality. Imagination cannot bring 
home to any human brain the extent to which the 
chess-board dispositions of modern strategy are 
tempered by the actualities of modern fighting — 
in other words, by the strain upon the human ma- 
chine. All the five senses are affected — hearing, 
by the appalling din; seeing, by the spectacle of a 



THE LINE 127 

whole group of human beings blown to shreds; 
smelling, by the reek of gas and explosives; touch- 
ing, by the feel of dead men's faces everywhere 
under your hand in the darkness; and tasting, by 
the unforgettable flavour of meat in the mouth 
after forty-eight hours' continuous fighting in an 
atmosphere of human blood. The War is going to 
be won, not by the strategists, but by the man who 
can endure these things most steadfastly. 

Miss Sissy Smithers need not be taken so seri- 
ously. He may be disappointed at first to find that 
Red Cross nurses follow their calKng in Base 
Hospitals and not in No Man's Land; and that 
performing dogs, loaded with secret despatches 
and medical comforts, are not such a prominent 
feature of modern warfare as the lady novelist 
would have us believe. But no enterprise, however 
grim, was ever the worse for a touch of glamour. 
Sissy will soon settle down. 

Still, we have come to school knowing more than 
most new boys — far more, indeed, than our sea- 
soned French and British companions knew when 
they embarked upon their martial education. The 
American soldier takes the field to-day, thanks to 
the recorded experiences of others, with a service- 
able knowledge of the routine of trench warfare. 
Gas is no surprise to him, and he is familiar with 
the tactical handling of bombs, machine guns, and 
trench-mortars. 

Up to date, however, we have not by any means 
drunk deep of warlike experience, for the good 
reason that the authorities are breaking us in by 



128 THE LAST MILLION 

degrees. We are now in trenches, holding what is 
described as a quiet sector of the Line, recently 
taken over from the French, and hitherto very 
lightly held. 

For the past two years, the Intelligence people 
tell us, the trenches opposite have been manned 
by only one German to every four yards of 
front. Eddie Gillette has already announced that 
when he has finished doing what he came out here 
to do the number of Germans opposite may be the 
same, but the method of distribution will be differ- 
ent. '^Not one Dutchman to four yards," he ex- 
plains, ''but a quarter of a Dutchman to every 
one yard. Yes, sir!'' 

Every Army has its own system of conducting 
trench warfare, founded largely upon national 
characteristics. The Germans, it used to be said, 
hold their trenches with machine guns, the British 
with men, the French with artillery. Certainly in 
nineteen-fifteen, when stationary warfare was the 
order of the day upon the Western Front, the 
Germans kept few men in the front trenches — 
except perhaps at night — leaving the line very 
much to the protection of barbed wire and machine 
guns, the latter laid and trained in such a fashion as 
to create if need be a continuous and impenetrable 
horizontal lattice-work of bullets in front of every 
section of the line. The British, having at that 
time more men than munitions — a battalion was 
lucky if it possessed four Vickers guns and a single 
trench-mortar — filled their trenches with as many 
defenders as they would hold, and trusted, not 



THE LINE 129 

altogether vainly, to the old British tradition of 
rapid rifle fire and close work with the bayonet 
to keep the line intact. 

The French temperament called for more elas- 
ticity than this. The one thing a Frenchman hates 
to do in warfare is keep still. He prefers active 
counter-measures to dogged resistance. So in 
nineteen-fifteen, whenever a sector of the French 
trenches was heavily bombarded, the garrison was 
promptly withdrawn to a position of comparative 
safety — where, the story goes, they seized the 
opportunity to cook an extra-elaborate dinner. 
If the Germans followed up their bombardment 
with an infantry attack, that attack was met 
mainly with an intensive barrage from that amaz- 
ingly rapid and accurate piece of scrap-iron, the 
soixante-quinze field gun. When the German attack 
fizzled out, as it usually did, the incident ended, 
and the French infantry returned to their place in 
the line. But if it penetrated the barrage and occu- 
pied the French trenches, the Frenchman finished 
his coffee, adjusted Rosalie, his bayonet, and prized 
Brother Boche out of his new quarters. 

But all that was in nineteen-fifteen. In warfare 
your best teacher is your opponent. Nowadays we 
have, on each side of No Man's Land, assimilated 
one another's methods. Moreover, trench warfare 
of to-day has developed into a fluid affair. For one 
thing, trench-mortars, tanks, and intensive artil- 
lery bombardments can make hay of the most 
elaborate defensive works. You can no longer sur- 
round yourself with barbed wire and go comfort- 



130 THE LAST MILLION 

ably to bed, secure in the knowledge that your 
opponent cannot possibly get at you without a 
long and laborious artillery preparation. In nine- 
teen-sixteen, before the First Battle of the Somme, 
British and French guns pounded the German 
trenches night and day for three weeks. It was a 
great pounding, but it cannot be said that the sub- 
sequent attack came as a surprise to the enemy. 
Under such prolonged and pointed attentions even 
a German is apt to suspect that something is in 
the wind. But to-day we have other methods. 
Three minutes of pandemonium from massed 
trench-mortars — a rush of tanks — and your 
defences are gone and the Philistine is upon you. 

So in nineteen-eighteen we live perpetually upon 
the qui vive, and our methods have been elaborated 
and standardized to the common measure of our 
joint experience. Our artillery has the whole front 
registered. At a given signal it can let down a bar- 
rage — a Niagara of shrapnel and high-explosive 
— upon the strip of earth that separates the 
enemy's front line from our own. This can be sta- 
tionary, to annihilate an enemy attack, or '' creep- 
ing," to form a protective screen for an attack of 
our own. We have machine guns too, set, a la 
Boche, at fixed angles to maintain a continuous 
band of fire along each line of our trenches — 
more especially along the second line; for it is a 
waste of life and energy to-day to treat the front 
trench as anything more than a close chain of out- 
posts, screening the real dispositions behind. 

And the rifle and bayonet have come back to 



THE LINE 131 

their own. Two years ago they were in danger of 
being discarded as obsolete. Every one was bomb 
mad. It was claimed that a rifle and bayonet are 
useless against an experienced opponent feeling 
his way along a zigzag trench in your direction. 
True; but a bomb is equally useless — or rather, 
equally dangerous — in the presence of an oppo- 
nent rushing upon you in the open. So now we have 
adjusted our perspectives, and each device of war 
is put to its proper use. 

So much for what the author of that little classic, 
"Dere Mable," would describe as '^Tecknickle 
stuff." 

Needless to say, we are burning to play with all 
these new toys simultaneously, like a small boy on 
Christmas morning. But we have had little oppor- 
tunity so far. To vary the metaphor, we must eat 
up our bread and butter before we are allowed cake. 
We are busy at present learning trench routine. 
Taking over trenches from another unit, for in- 
stance. This is a complicated and exasperating pas- 
time. It usually has to be performed in the dark; 
otherwise enemy aeroplanes might observe un- 
usual activity behind our line, and advise their 
artillery to that effect. This involves much night- 
marching along roads pitted with shell-holes; and 
the trouble about a shell-hole three feet deep is 
that in wet weather it looks like a perfectly inno- 
cent puddle. Frequently, to avoid congested wheel 
traffic, we have to march across country in single 
file, under the leadership of a faltering guide. Not 
a light must be shown, not a word spoken. Each 



132 THE LAST MILLION 

man, loaded with rifle, equipment, gas apparatus, 
and a few extra and imauthorized comforts, has to 
follow the ghostly form of the man immediately 
in front of him. It is discouraging work, for the sim- 
ple reason that if you set one hundred men to 
march in single file in the dark, though the leader 
may be groping his way forward at the rate of 
one roile per hour, the last man in the queue is 
always running, and has to run if he is not to be left 
behind. No one knows why this should be so, but 
the uncanny fact remains. 

Once you have descended into the communica- 
tion trenches it is less easy to lose yourself — unless 
the guide sets the example — but your progress 
becomes slower than ever. Possibly — probably 

— you meet a procession going in the opposite 
direction — a ration-party, maybe, or stretcher- 
bearers with their patient, cheery freight. The 
fact that they have no right to be there at all 

— practically all communication-trenches here are 
supposed to be one-way thoroughfares — makes 
matters no easier, though it affords relief in the 
form of argumentative profanity as you struggle to- 
gether in the constricted fairway like stout ma- 
trons loaded with market-produce in a street-car. 

Arrived in the actual trenches, the congestion is 
even greater, for now there are just twice as many 
men in the trench as it was constructed to hold, 
and the outgoing party must never budge until 
the incoming party have arrived and ''taken over." 
Taking over is no mere formality either. Officers, 
machine-gunners, bombers, chemical experts, and 



THE LINE 133 

other specialists must seek out their ^^ opposite 
numbers" in the gross darkness and take receipt 
in due form of ammunition, observation-posts, 
gas-alarms, and situation reports, amid the crack- 
ling of rifle-fire and the sputtering of the illuminat- 
ing flares. 

At last the relief is complete. The word is passed 
along. The outgoing unit, after communicating 
sundry items of information as to the habits 
and customs — mostly unpleasant — of the local 
Boche, coupled with sundry warnings as to his 
favourite targets and own tender spots, fades 
away down the communication-trenches, with 
whispered expressions of good-will — and you are 
left alone, wondering what would happen if the 
enemy were to make a surprise attack now. 

Trench life is never comfortable at any time, but 
the first night in a strange trench is the most 
uncomfortable of all. For one thing, the trench 
feels unnaturally crowded. Moreover, we are young 
troops — the youngest troops in the world to-day 
— and that means much. We have no Mulvaneys 
or Learoyds among us. If we had, we should be 
taught a number of things — how to boil a canteen 
over a couple of glowing chips; how to hollow out 
a bed in hard soil; where to find water in an ap- 
parently dry trench — trifles small in themselves, 
but making all the difference between misery and 
comfort. 

But that by the way. With daylight comes a new 
spirit — or rather, the old spirit — of confidence. 
Eager persons peer over the parapet, to observe 



134 THE LAST MILLION 

where the enemy is, and what he is like. They see 
little enough. Two hundred yards away an irregu- 
lar ripple of sandbags — some white, some black — 
looking like a dirty wave-crest on a brown sea, 
marks the position of the German fire-trenches. 
This mixture of colours is thoughtful. If the sand- 
bags were all of one tint, like our own, loopholes 
would be hard to conceal : under the German sys- 
tem, you never know at a distance whether you 
are looking at a loophole or merely a black sandbag. 
The intervening space is a wilderness of shell-holes, 
splintered tree-stumps, and rusty barbed wire. 
Fiu-ther observation is cut short by a sniper's 
bullet, which travels past enquiring heads with a 
vicious crack. We have learned our first lesson. 
In trench warfare, by daylight at least, curiosity 
must be satisfied through peepholes or periscopes. 
In the trench itself there is plenty to occupy us. 
There are watches to be kept and manual work to 
be done. A trench system is eternally throwing out 
annexes and undergoing repairs, for the artillery 
on the other side is always busy. There are supplies 
to be brought up. There is cooking to be done: that 
occupies much time, for firing-trenches to-day are 
equipped, like the fashionable lady's vanity-bag, 
with everything except the kitchen stove. And no 
bad thing either. Trench life has been described 
by competent authorities as ''Weeks of Monotony 
tempered by Half -Hours of Hell." Nothing dispels 
monotony like the necessity of practising the prim- 
itive domestic virtues. At home we hire expensive 
menials — or expect our wives — to light our fires 



THE LINE 135 

and cook our dinners, because we are too busy or 
too civilized to do it ourselves. Over here we like 
doing it, because it is our actual instinct to do so, 
and also passes the time. 

As for the Half-Hours of Hell, these mainly take 
the form of short, furious bombardments and mid- 
night raids. But the German artillery is not very 
busy in this sector. Guns, and more guns, are ur- 
gently required farther north, where the Allied 
line, after stretching back and back during those 
anxious days in the spring of the year, has now 
reacted like a released bowstring and has shot 
the Boche back to the Meuse. 

So far as we can gather from the sources at our 
disposal — official bulletins, intermittent news- 
papers, and trench gossip (personified in the Amer- 
ican Expeditionary Force by a supposititious in- 
dividual of great erudition but small reliability, 
whose Christian name is ^'Joe") — our cause is 
prospering from the North Sea to the Alps. Ger- 
many shot her bolt with her third great offensive 
on the twenty-seventh of May, when German arms 
once more crossed the Marne and penetrated to 
within twenty-eight miles of Paris. There they were 
stayed, in a battle where at least one third of the 
Allied troops were American, and where the young 
American Army got its first real chance, and took 
it. In this operation the Second and Third Ameri- 
can Divisions were sent to stiffen the French fine. 
Of these, the Third successfully held a vital bridge- 
head opposite Chateau Thierry: the Second cap- 
tured Bouresches, Belleau Wood, and Vaux. 



136 THE LAST MILLION 

So much we know for certain, for these things 
happened before we left England, and official 
information was available. The work of the Ma- 
rines, in the Second Division, has already passed 
into American histcr>^ But for news of subsequent 
happenings we have had to depend too much upon 
our friend Joe. All we know for certain is that on the 
fifteenth of July the enemy launched just one more 
offensive — his fourth and as it proved, his very 
last. This time, so far as we can gather, the Allies, 
instead of contenting themselves with defensive 
tactics, took the business into their own hands and 
bit suddenly and deeply into the side of the huge, 
distended, pocketful of Germans which hung down 
from Soissons over Paris. The pocket promptly 
contracted itself: the enemy disgorged himself 
from its mouth, and began to retreat. From all 
accounts he has been retreating ever since. 

French, British, and American troops were all 
engaged in this, the final and triumphant redress- 
ing of the balance. And each were represented by 
their best. One of our liaison officers tells us of a 
memorial set up by French soldiers in honour 
of the dead of the famous Fifty-first Division of 
the British Army — the Highland Territorials — 
and of an inscription carved thereon which pro- 
claimed that hereafter the Thistle of Scotland 
would forever flourish beside the Lilies of France. 
In that great fight not merely unity of command, 
but unity of sentiment, seem to have come to their 
own at last. 

The Alhed counter-attack struck deep along the 



THE LINE 137 

whole line. Soissons and Montdidier, we hear, are 
once more in our hands; while farther north, in 
Flanders, the British Third and Fourth Armies 
are sweeping f orv\^ard for the last time in the blood- 
soaked valley of the Lys. 

As for the American share, we have not heard 
too much, but what we have heard is enough to 
make us tingle. We hear of great work by the 
Regulars of the First, Second, and Third Divisions; 
by the Twenty-sixth — the Yankees of New Eng- 
land — and by the Forty-second Rainbow Divi- 
sion, from Yaphank. It is also reported that other 
American Divisions made no small impression 
upon Brother Boche — the Fourth, the Twenty- 
eighth; the Thu-ty-second, and the Seventy- 
seventh. 

The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth, we under- 
stand, are somewhere with the British opposite 
the Hindenburg Line near Cambrai. Doubtless 
we shall hear something of them too, in due course. 
Great days, great days! But to what a fever of 
exasperation are we aroused, who are not there 
ourselves ! 



CHAPTER TWELVE 

CHASING MONOTONY 

At present the authorities are engaged in impress- 
ing upon us the truth of the maxim which says that 
you must not run before you can walk. Our imme- 
diate duty is to show that we can stand the test 
of ordinary trench warfare. 

First, such every-day nuisances as the German 
sniper. And here we have a pleasant little success 
to record. 

When we took over these trenches, snipers were 
numerous and vigilant. If you raised your head 
above the parapet, one of two things happened. 
Either you heard a sound like the crack of a whip- 
lash close to your ear; or you did not. If you did, 
you were lucky. If you did not, you were buried at 
dusk. 

There is one piece of slightly rising ground in the 
enemy's line which commands an obUque view 
of a stretch of our front trenches. For a week we 
have been pestered by a sniper concealed some- 
where along this eminence, about three hundred 
yards away, on our right front. We have scrutin- 
ized its whole expanse with periscopes and through 
loopholes, but there is no sign of trench or em- 
placement where the sniper might be concealed. 

Yesterday that untutored but resourceful fire- 
eater, Eddie Gillette, turned his attention to the 
matter, the urgency of which had been impressed 



CHASING MONOTONY 139 

upon him by the fact that a sniper's bullet, travel- 
ling sidewise down the trench, had chipped a 
groove in Eddie's own "tin derby" that very 
morning, Eddie's head being inside at the time. 

"We got to locate that lobster," he observed. 
And he did. 

In a field behind the support line there grows, or 
rather, rots, a crop of derelict and much-bom- 
barded turnips. Last night Eddie, after a confer- 
ence with his officer, Boone Cruttenden, and the 
top machine-gun sergeant, disappeared for an hour 
into the hinterland, and brought back with him an 
armful of selected esculents. The largest of these 
he proceeded this morning to spear upon a flat lath 
of wood. Upon the top of this eminence he perched 
his own steel helmet, at a jaunty angle. Attended 
by a respectfully interested cohort of disciples, or 
rubbernecks, he next selected a suitable spot in 
the front-line trench, and with the help of a length 
of rope and a little ingenuity succeeded in lashing 
the turnip-laden lath to the revetment of the para- 
pet in such a fashion as to make it possible to slide 
the lath up and down. 

It was a still, sunny, September morning, and 
the whole line was quiet, except for an occasional 
rifle-shot, and the intermittent boom of artillery 
beyond the next hill-crest to the south. Eddie's 
preliminary adjustments were barely completed 
when Boone Cruttenden arrived, carrying a peri- 
scope and attended by the machine-gun sergeant. 

"Got everything fixed, Gillette?" enquired 
Boone. 



140 THE LAST MILLION 

''Yes, sir/^ replied Eddie, ignoring the cynical 
smiles of Joe McCarthy, who was present in the 
capacity of dramatic critic. 

''Right," said Boone. "Go to it!'^ 

The inventor cautiously slid the lath up in its 
groove, until the helmet-crowned turnip stood 
some six inches above the parapet, offering a 
goodly mark against the sky. Then crouching 
down, he waited. The spectators, with remarkable 
unanimity, followed his example. 

Crack! 

A bullet shaved the top sandbag and buried itself 
with a vicious thud in the back wall of the trench. 

"Missed!" announced Gillette calmly. "We 
better let him try again." 

"Lower the turnip a couple of minutes first," 
advised Boone. "A real man would n't keep his 
head up there all the time — unless it was a bone 
one!" 

Gillette compHed, and waited. 

"What's the big idea, Ed?" enquu-ed Al 
Thompson respectfully. 

"The big idea," replied Eddie, "is first of all to 
let that Dutchman over there drill a hole in this 
turnip. Then, if we peek through the hole, we shall 
be looking along the track of the bullet — at this 
range it would travel on a pretty-nigh flat line — 
and we shall see the exact place the bullet started 
from, which is what we are after. In case we don't 
get the exact location, we will put up another tur- 
nip some other place in the trench, and get a cross- 
bearing from that. That's the big idea, boys!" 



CHASING MONOTONY 141 

"And who," enquired the grating voice of Mr. 
Joe McCarthy, "is the poor fish who's gonna put 
his bean up above the parapet and peek through 
the hole?" 

Eddie Gillette forbore to reply, but resumed his 
operations with added dignity, sliding his turnip- 
head once more into the enemy's view. There 
was another crack, and the steel helmet oscillated 
sharply. 

"Right through the nose!" announced Eddie, 
with ghoulish satisfaction. "Now, Captain — 
quick!" 

Ah-eady Boone Cruttenden, crouching low, was 
applying his periscope to the hole in the back of 
the turnip. The machine-gun sergeant, stationed 
at a tiny observation loophole in a steel plate close 
by, waited eagerly for instructions. 

Boone, with his magnifying periscope, took a 
rapid observation of the constricted field of view 
afforded by the narrow tunnel through the turnip; 
then another, over the open parapet this time; 
then another, through the turnip again. He spoke 
rapidly. 

"Sergeant, do you see two stunted willows on the 
sky-line, half -right?" 

"Yes, SU-." 

"Below them, a single small bush?" 

"Yes, sir. I got it." 

"Well, lay a machine gun to cover the ground 
about five yards to the right of that. Call the range 
three-fifty. I guess he is somewhere around there. 
I can't see any loophole or anything, but maybe 



142 THE LAST MILLION 

he is lying right out in the open, covered in grass, 
or — '' 

Crack! The conscientious artist over the way was 
growing restive at his own want of success. This 
time he chipped the top of the steel helmet. 

^'That will do/' said Boone. ''Lower away that 
turnip, Gillette, and we'll take a second bearing 
farther along." 

Mr. Gillette collected his paraphernaha with the 
solemn dignity of an acolyte taking part in a mys- 
tery. But he unbent to human level for a moment. 

''You see," he observed caustically, "we don't 
require no poor fish here, Joe McCarthy!" 

In due course a second turnip was hoisted and 
perforated, a second bearing taken, and another 
machine gun laid. The machine-gun teams took 
station; the first cartridges were fed into the 
chambers. 

"Let 'em go the moment he snipes again," was 
Boone's order. 

A third spot was selected, and a third turnip 
exposed. This time it wagged itself provokingly, 
and the sniper responded at once. It was a beau- 
tiful shot, but it was his last. Next moment two 
converging streams of machine-gun bullets were 
spattering his lair. What happened we shall never 
know, but we were never again troubled from that 
particular locality. 

"We certainly got to hand it to you, Ed," an- 
nounced Joe McCarthy, in an unusual fit of self- 
abasement. 

Next, artillery fire. The Boche bombards our 



CHASING MONOTONY 143 

trenches twice a day, and searches the back areas 
with shrapnel at night. He is not very persistent, 
and a Httle sharp retahation from our gunners 
usually brings his performance to a conclusion. 
Still, it is unpleasant while it lasts. 

To be shelled for the first time must fairly rank 
with the first cigarette, the first shave, and the first 
kiss as one of the unforgettable experiences of life. 
Opinions vary as to the best place to be during a 
bombardment — assuming that one has to be any- 
where at all. Jim Nichols considers a shell-hole 
a good place. 

''It is well known," he points out, ''that no two 
bullets ever hit the same spot. Nelson, or some 
other historical gink, once said that the safest place 
for a man to put his head during a sea-fight was 
a hole made in a ship's side by a cannon-ball. Me 
for a shell-hole, every time!" 

Boone Cruttenden thinks an ordinary trench 
dugout would be best. Else what are dugouts for ? 

"It depends on who made them," replies the 
veteran Major Powers. "The German officer's idea 
is all right. He turns on a squad of men, and they 
construct for him a combined club and restaurant 
somewhere near the centre of the earth. But even 
that is liable to have its exits blocked. Personally, 
if I were under bombardment, I should stay out 
in the trench. I am more likely to be hit, but less 
likely to be buried; and I don't intend to go putting 
the cart before the horse at my funeral!" 

All had an opportunity to test their theories — 
and their nerve — the first afternoon after taking 



144 THE LAST MILLION 

over the trenches. Boone and Jim shared a dugout 
in the front Hne, sunk below the forward parapet, 
under the sandbags. Having contracted the British 
habit of afternoon tea, they were occupied towards 
jfive o'clock in brewing that beverage in a mess-tin, 
when suddenly, with a whizz and a rush, a German 
shell passed over the trench and burst amid a cloud 
of flying clods fifty yards beyond it. 

'^This is the afternoon bombardment that we 
were warned about," said Jim, pouring out two cups 
of tea. '^ Now we shall know whether we are shell- 
shy or not!" 

Boone took his aluminum teacup in his hand, 
and held it to his lips. Simultaneously another shell 
landed outside — fifty yards short of the parapet this 
time. The earth shook. Fragments of dirt and grit 
fell from the sandbag ceiling into the tea. Boone 
regarded the hand which was holding the teacup. 
He noted with secret satisfaction that though his 
heart was bumping slightly, the hand was as steady 
as a rock. 

^'That is what is known as 'bracketing,' I 
guess," said Nichols. ''The next shell will strike an 
average between the ranges of the first two and get 
this happy home of ours just where the cork got 
the bottle." 

He was right — or nearly. Next moment, with a 
triumphant shriek, a shell landed fairly in the 
trench, fifteen yards to their right. They felt little 
concussion, for the trench was provided with stout 
earthen traverses, which limited the radius of the 
explosion and blanketed its force. 



CHASING MONOTONY 145 

*'The question before the House/' said Boone, 
"is whether we stay where we are or go away from 
here. Hallo, what's that?" 

A hoarse cry was passing down the trench from 
mouth to mouth — a cry which never fails to tug 
at a soldier's heart, for he knows not what comrade 
may be involved : 

' ' Stretcher-bearers ! ' ' 

Both officers scrambled out of their shelter. 
Three men, crouching inside the entrance to a 
neighbouring dugout, had been hit by fragments 
of shell — all in the legs. In due course the stretch- 
ers arrived, and the trio — our first actual casual- 
ties — were borne off upon that long and tortuous 
journey which starts in a communication- trench 
and ends possibly at Home. They were followed 
by the mingled chorus of sympathy and congratu- 
lation always accorded in these days to those who 
are taken, by those who are left. 

More German shells arrived. The parapet was 
hit in two places, and burst sandbags flew in the 
air. But it was not " heavy stuff " — so the artillery 
officer remarked, busy in his forward observing- 
station with periscope and telephone — and the 
actual damage was slight. 

^'I am calling for retaliation now," he explained 
to Boone and Jim. He gabbled a formula to the 
telephone orderly, who repeated it into a portable 
instrument before him. Presently the man looked 
up. 

^^ Battery fired!" he announced. And a few 
moments later — 



146 THE LAST MILLION 

Whish! Whish! Whish! Whish! 

Four hissing streaks of sound passed over the 
trench from the rear. Next moment four heavy 
detonations shook the earth. A hundred pairs of 
eager eyes, peeping cautiously over the parapet, 
observed four fountains of earth and smoke spring 
up in No Man's Land. 

" Short ! " muttered the gunner officer, and issued 
a corrective order. 

So the duel went on. It was a typical artillery 
fight, in that each side endeavoured to dissuade its 
opponent from further participation by bombard- 
ing, not one another, but one another's friends in 
the trenches. The German fire did not slacken; if 
anything it increased. Probably Brother Boche was 
well aware that a fresh division had taken over the 
line, and desired to make a good first impression. 
But there were no more casualties. 

'T'm tired of this. What about finishing our 
tea?" enquired Boone Cruttenden of Jim Nichols. 

^'Sure thing," said Jim. ''Come on!" 

But no. As they rounded the traverse leading 
into their own particular bay, there came a roar 
and a bang — and their home was not. When the 
smoke cleared away they saw, instead of a rugged 
and workmanlike parapet, a jumbled heap of dis- 
integrated sandbags and twisted timber- work. 

Jim Nichols turned to his companion, with his 
slow smile. 

''There!" he said. ''Do you still hold that the 
best place during a bombardment is a dugout?" 



CHASING MONOTONY 147 

^'I'm stung, I admit/' said Boone. ^^But now 
you can test your theory. You can sit in the mid- 
dle of that mess that the shell has made. It 's in full 
view of the enemy, but of course you'll be safe!" 

The rival theorist smiled again. 

''I confess I have died on that proposition," he 
said. 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM 

We now regard ourselves, justifiably, as initiated. 

We have been bombarded fairly regularly. We 
do not like it, but we can stand it, which is all that 
matters — as eels probably remark while being 
skinned. We are getting used, also, to the sight of 
sudden death and human blood. These things affect 
us less than we expected. It is all a matter of envi- 
ronment. If you were to see a man caught and cut 
in two between a street-car and a taxi-cab in your 
own home town, the spectacle would make you 
physically sick and might haunt you for weeks, 
because such incidents are not part of the recog- 
nized routine of home town hfe. But here, they are 
part of the day's work: we are prepared for them: 
they are what we are in the War for. And, curi- 
ously and providentially, it seldom occurs to any 
of us to suspect that it may be his turn next. Thus 
all-wise Nature maintains our balance for us. 

We have made another interesting discovery 
about Nature, and that is that habit can be 
stronger than instinct, and pride than either. The 
first law of Nature is said to be the instinct of self- 
preservation. Yet the average soldier, even in the 
inferno of modern warfare, gives less trouble to his 
leaders when under shell-fire than when his dinner 
does not come up to the usual standard, or he has 
run out of cigarettes. 



AN EXCURSION 149 

Pride, again. This morning, two machine-gun- 
ners, namely, one Sam Gates and our old friend 
Miss Sissy Smithers, observed through their loop- 
hole a derelict German helmet lying amid the hedge 
of rusty barbed wire outside the trench. The pas- 
sion for souvenirs is inborn in the himian race, but 
most strongly developed in soldiers taking their first 
turn in the trenches. 

'^Me for that lid!" announced Sissy. 

''How are you gonna get it?" enquired his 
friend. 

''The only way I know of. Going over the top 
and fetching it." 

Sam stared meditatively through the loophole, 
and remarked carelessly: 

''You '11 wait till it gets dark, I guess." 

Human nature is a curious thing. Sissy Smithers 
was reckoned a quiet youth. In civil life he earned 
a romantic but unheroic livelihood by selling ladies' 
hosiery. But his friend's perfectly casual and rea- 
sonable observation stung him to the roots of his 
being. His face flamed. Without a word he scram- 
bled upon the firing-step, heaved himself over the 
parapet, walked quite deliberately to the barbed 
wire, and brought back the helmet. The helmet 
had a chip in it. The chip was made by a German 
sniper as Sissy lifted the helmet out of the wire. 

The Boche employs other vehicles of frightful- 
ness besides artillery. The Flying Pig, for example. 
This engaging animal is really an aerial mine, 
about six feet long. It appears suddenly high in 
the air above No Man's Land, propelled thither by 



150 THE LAST MILLION 

some invisible and inaudible agency behind the 
German line, and descends upon us in a series of 
amusing somersaults. Having reached its destina- 
tion it explodes, with results disastrous to the 
landscape. A single Flying Pig can do more damage 
than a whole artillery bombardment. But it pos- 
sesses one redeeming feature. You can see it coming. 
When you do, the correct procedure is to decide 
quickly where it is going to come down, and then 
go somewhere else. It is an exhilarating pastime, 
but attended by complications when played by a 
large number of persons in a narrow trench — 
especially when differences of opinion exist as to 
where the animal really intends to alight. 

Then there is gas. But gas is more of a nuisance 
than a danger in these days, since we are all — even 
the horses — equipped with a special breathing 
apparatus, and carry the same night and day. Our 
newest mask, too, is a great advance on its predeces- 
sors. The chief trouble about gas-masks hitherto has 
been the formation of mist on the inside of the gog- 
gles. Now, by the happy inspiration of some name- 
less benefactor in the Service of Supply, the breath- 
ing tubes are so arranged that the filtered air, when 
it arrives, passes right over the inner surface of the 
eye-pieces, clearing the glass at every intake of 
breath. 

Mustard gas is another story, because it attacks 
the skin — ■ unless you happen to be a coloured 
gentleman, and then apparently you do not mind 
so much. 

But our busy time is at night. Supplies come up; 



AN EXCURSION 151 

casualties go back. Trench repairs have to be exe- 
cuted in places inaccessible by daylight. Sandbags 
innumerable have to be filled and set in position. 

^'This yer War/' observes Joe McCarthy, bit- 
terly, ^^will be finished when all the dirt in France 
has been shovelled into sandbags — by you an' 
me! Then they'll have to quit, or fall through!" 

But the most thrilling experiences of trench war- 
fare are trench raids. These are not necessarily 
elaborate affairs. Some of them are quite informal. 
Their objects are twofold — the first, to keep the 
enemy guessing, the second, to obtain information. 
The second is the most important. It is vitally 
necessary to know just where every one of your 
enemy's Divisions is located. The simplest method 
of finding out is to send over armed deputations 
in the dead of night, with instructions to bring 
back a few assorted Germans. These, when they 
arrive, are interrogated, and their equipment and 
shoulder-straps are examined, for clues as to their 
identity. In this way it is usually possible to dis- 
cover what Divisions are in station opposite, and 
how much front each holds. If a Division is spread 
out widely, you may be tolerably sure that the 
enemy has no serious designs upon your sector of 
the line. But if Divisions are '^distributed in 
depth" — that is, with narrow fronts and long 
tails — the wise conamander begins to accumulate 
ammunition and draft reserves into his back areas. 
Before the great German drive in March, against 
the attenuated British line at St. Quentin, Sir 
Douglas Haig was made aware, by this and other 



152 THE LAST MILLION 

means, of the cheering intelligence that he had 
opposite to a comparatively short sector of his 
front sixty-four German Divisions — - or six more 
Divisions than there were British Divisions in the 
whole of France and Belgium! That was a case in 
which nothing could be done except put up the 
best defence possible with the troops available, for 
equally overwhelming odds were being massed 
against the rest of the British line. But in normal 
cases, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. 

Trench raids are intermittent affairs. Patrols, 
on the other hand, must be organized every night. 
These excursions are not necessarily belligerent. 
Their main object is to collect information, and to 
make sure that the enemy keeps to his own side of 
the street. If two patrols do meet, and feel con- 
strained to ^' start something," the one thing no 
one ever does is to pull a gun or throw a bomb. 
To do so would be to invite impartial participa- 
tion in the game by the machine guns of both sides. 
It must be cold steel or nothing. As often as not, 
it is nothing. Two patrols may meet, and cut one 
another dead, like rival beauties on Fifth Avenue. 

One night Boone Cruttenden found himself de- 
tailed for patrol duty, with a sergeant and fom- 
men. The party were to scale the parapet, pass 
through a gap in the wire, and make a tour of a 
certain section of No Man's Land. The whole oper- 
ation, which was by this time a familiar one, was 
expected to occupy about an hour. Orders were 
given to the trench garrison that there must be 
no firing during this period. 



AN EXCURSION 153 

Just before midnight, in the soft September 
darkness, Boone led his followers over the sand- 
bags. It was a quiet night — suspiciously quiet — 
and there was little to be heard save some impatient 
rips of machine-gun fire farther south, and the soft 
explosion of the Verey pistols on both sides. There 
are three impressions of nocturnal trench warfare 
which never fade from the memory of those who 
have served their apprenticeship therein — one, the 
endless vista of bursting star-shells sinking from 
the sky along that tortuous, dolorous way that calls 
itself No Man's Land; two, the eternal plop-plop! 
of the Verey pistols; three, the mingled smell of 
fresh earth, decaying matter, and disinfectants. 

Boone's first objective was a deep shell-crater 
some fifteen yards outside the wire. He had dis- 
covered it two nights previously, and it had struck 
him as a useful location for an advanced patrolling 
base. He gathered his henchmen around him and 
addressed them in a low voice. 

''Sergeant, you stay here with McCarthy. Gil- 
lette and Thompson, crawl along oiu- own front 
in that direction" — he pointed south — ''until 
you come to the row of willow stumps that runs 
across from our line to theirs. (It's an old turnpike, 
really.) Examine our wire all the way along, and 
see if it has been monkeyed with. If you catch sight 
of an enemy patrol, Gillette will stay and watch 
while Thompson gets back here and reports to the 
sergeant. Gillette, you will not take any notice of 
them" — Eddie sighed brokenly — " unless they 
show signs of wanting to come too close to our 



154 THE LAST MILLION 

trenches.'^ (Eddie^s spirits rose again.) ^'Then use 
your own judgment. Your best plan will probably 
be to get home by the shortest route and warn the 
officer in charge. But don't start any trouble if you 
can help it, because I shall be over on the other 
side with Gogarty, and we want to get home too! 
In any case we must all be back in an hour, because 
the artillery have a date with the German back 
areas at two, and we don't want to get mixed up 
in any retaliation that may be going. Gogarty, 
follow me up this dry ditch. It leads right to the 
German wire, and we may find a German sentry- 
post halfway across. So come quietly." 

The two little expeditions crept away, on routes 
at right angles to one another. We will follow 
Boone and Mr. James Gogarty, who has not hith- 
erto been introduced to the reader. 

Jimmy Gogarty was twenty years of age, of 
wizened appearance, and raucous voice. He looked 
and sounded exactly like what he was — a bell- 
hop. He had exchanged livery for uniform at the 
first breath of hostilities, and was now reckoned 
one of the smartest scouts in Boone's Company. 
He was a New Yorker born and bred, and had 
fought his way steadily up the social ladder of 
Second Avenue by the exercise of five remarkably 
sharp wits and two unpleasantly hard fists. He 
was devoted to Boone Cruttenden. 

The trenches were about two hundred yards 
apart. Progress along the ditch was not easy, 
for it was choked with undergrowth and refuse. 
Moreover, there were here and there unburied 



AN EXCURSION 155 

Germans whom it were wiser to avoid. Occasion- 
ally the ditch was intersected by other routes — 
old trenches, and the like. Here they Stopped, 
Looked, and Listened, as they had been warned 
to do all their lives at more peaceful cross-roads 
far away. But all was quiet. Too quiet, Boone 
thought. On his previous excursions he had usu- 
ally been aware of much life — furtive, guttiu-al, 
inquisitive life — all around him. But to-night No 
Man's Land seemed a desert. 

Boone whispered his suspicions to his squire. 

''I guess dat means de bums is goin' to start 
something" observed Mr. Gogarty hoarsely. (He 
was regrettably tough in his speech. The thin 
veneer of hotel civilization had long been rubbed 
off him.) 

''We are fairly close to their wire now,^' whis- 
pered Boone. ''I am going to get out of this drain 
and prospect along their front. You go straight 
ahead, and watch out in case" they come crawling 
down the ditch. If they do, give a whistle — just 
one — to warn me, and then beat it for the Ser- 
geant. Otherwise, expect me here in ten minutes." 

''I get you," said James agreeably. 

Ten minutes later the pair met in the appointed 
spot. Boone was covered with mud and panting 
heavily : Gogarty was quiescent, except that he was 
emitting a pecuHar noise. If he had been a cat, you 
would have said he was purring. 

''Seen anything?" asked Boone. 

"Yep." 

"What?" 



156 THE LAST MILLION 

^'Two Dutchmen! Dey was in dis ditch — 'bout 
thoity yards along. Keepin' watch, I guess. Some 
watch!" 

''Where are they now?" 

''Still there. Quite still — there!" 

" You mean, — ?" 

"Well, I ain't one to blow, but — I'm here, and 
dey are not! You seen anything, Captain?" 

"Yes; listen! There's a German raiding-party, 
or something, mustering outside their wire. I saw 
them creeping into line, one by one, when the moon 
came out just now. They are coming across, and 
soon!" 

"How are dey going to get through our wire?" 
enquired practical James. 

"Either break it up with a five-minute trench- 
mortar bombardment, or creep forward and blow 
a few gaps with dynamite torpedoes. Now, I am 
going to wait here until they start moving. Then 
I shall get back, quick. Meanwhile" — Boone 
tugged at his field despatch-book — "I want you 
to take a note to Major Powers." 

Flat on his stomach, Boone was squirming deep 
into the rank undergrowth of the ditch. 

"Hold this electric torch right down over the 
paper," he said, "while I write. Keep a good look- 
out at the same time, and if you see any one, 
switch it off." 

For two minutes Boone scribbled frantically. 
The fighting blood of all the Cruttendens was 
coursing in his veins. He forgot the official form of 
address: he omitted certain prescribed formulae — 



AN EXCURSION 157 

the date, the hour, his own geographical position 
but he overlooked nothing else. The despatch, 
when completed, read: 

Dear Major, the Hun is going to raid you. So far 
as I can see it will he between the points A and B on 
attached sketch. I suggest you send out a m.-g. to 
shell-hole marked X, from which you can enfilade 
whole front in danger. Come to shell-hole yourself, or 
send some one, and I will come along and warn you 
as soon as I see them start, 

"Tsike that to Major Powers right away," he 
said. ''As you pass through the shell-hole warn the 
Sergeant, and tell him to expect a machine gun 
there. But whatever you do, find the Major! Try 
Battalion Headquarters first — in the support-line. 
If he is not there, he'll be in the firing-trench. But 
find him, whatever you do, and quick!" 

''I'll find him," replied the retired bell-hop, con- 
fidently. "Why, I found people in the Biltmore 
before now!" 

He began to creep away. 

"Come back here, of course," added Boone. 

Mr. Gogarty chuckled hoarsely. 
. "Cap," he replied, "you betcher!" 

Ten minutes passed. Boone, tingling Hke an in- 
duction coil, watched the progress of the raiding- 
party. They were moving very methodically, keep- 
ing a beautiful line. Whenever a Verey light burst 
above them, or the moon asserted herself, they 
were flat on their faces in a moment; but during 



^iy'JJiTcTi 




n» 



2: 



CTfc 



?' 






?* 



T" 



I 



TPPfffpppfpffPf < 



AN EXCURSION 159 

the next period of darkness they always seemed 
to cover another twenty yards. They were halfway 
across now, almost exactly opposite to Boone. 

Another ten minutes. Still no Gogarty. 

^^I wonder where he is/' muttered Boone rest- 
lessly. ''We ought to have a watch on the far end 
of this ditch. If they come creeping along it, as 
they ought to do — Gee whizz!" 

From behind the German line came a chorus of 
sharp discharges; then a whirring and a humming 
over Boone's head. Then the earth rocked beneath 
the tremendous detonation, and the skies were ht 
up with the flash of a barrage of German trench- 
mortar bombs, exploding along two hundred yards 
of American wire. 

The barrage lasted just one minute. Directly 
after, three things happened, almost simultane- 
ously. The line of raiders rose to its feet and dashed 
with a yell through the writhing remnants of the 
wire. The voice of a machine gun — nay, a pair of 
machine guns — broke into steady reverberation 
from the shell-crater, seventy yards to Boone's 
right. Lastly, a rocket shot up from the American 
support-line. 

''That 's for our artillery," said Boone to himself. 
"They'll be putting down a heavy barrage on No 
Man's Land in a moment — right here. Good-night, 
nurse!" 

He began to run swiftly back along the ditch, 
crouching low. In this posture he rounded a slight 
bend, and two steel helmets clashed together. 
Boone, standing up to massage his ringing head, 



160 THE LAST MILLION 

realized that the faithful Gogarty had returned to 
duty. 

^^We got dem guys fixed this time!'' announced 
the scout triumphantly. ^^Two Vickers guns in de 
shell-hole, to give 'em hell comin' and goin'!' 

It was true. Major Powers had done marvels in 
the twenty scant minutes at his disposal. He had 
decided to send two machine guns over to the shell- 
hole; for ammunition-belts sometimes jam, and it 
was essential that a continuous stream of bullets 
should be maintained along the wire during the 
fateful moment of attack. He had also warned the 
Artillery and Brigade Headquarters of impending 
events. Finally, he had withdrawn his trench gar- 
rison from the front line as a precaution against 
a trench-mortar bombardment, and had aligned 
them, with bayonets fixed, in the support-trench 
behind, with orders to dash forward to their 
original positions the moment the signal was given. 

They were hasty preparations, but six weeks' 
rehearsal could not have made their success more 
complete. It was just such an undertaking as suits 
the American soldier — without cohesion or direct 
leadership, and depending almost entirely upon 
quick grasp of the situation and spontaneous team- 
work. The German attacking party, plunging 
forward through the broken defences, came right 
into line with the Vickers guns, with the result that 
it found itself wading through a river of lead flow- 
ing at the rate of five hundred bullets per minute 
at a distance of eighteen inches from the ground. 
Many went down at once: the others stumbled 



AN EXCURSION 161 

on gallantly enough, and reached the American 
trench just in time to see a wave of yelling Ameri- 
can soldiers break into it from the ground behind. 

Some of the raiders leapt down into the trench, 
and were submerged at once. A few threw bombs, 
most of which were deftly caught and thrown back 
before they could explode. Others were engaged 
upon the parapet itself. The rest, making heavy 
weather in the wire and tortured by the stream of 
bullets, broke back, only to find that the second 
machine gun was maintaining a steady enfilade fire 
across their line of retreat. 

At the height of the turmoil the sky far behind 
the American lines was suddenly illuminated by 
flashes. Next moment, with a rush and a roar, the 
American retaliatory barrage was tearing up No 
Man's Land and the German fire-trenches beyond. 
The raiders were completely isolated. 

For four minutes the tempest of shells raged. 
Then, with stunning suddenness, came silence, 
grim as death, broken only by a few hoarse cries 
and a little sympathetic uneasiness farther down 
the line. The raid was over. How it had fared the 
Germans over the way never knew, for not a single 
raider came back to tell them. 

The dead and wounded enemy were disentan- 
gled from the wire, where most of them had fallen. 
American casualties, thanks to Boone's warning 
and Major Powers's dispositions, had been com- 
paratively slight, though the bombs had taken a 
certain gruesome toll. Eddie Gillette, who with 
Al Thompson had returned from his tour of in- 



162 THE LAST MILLION 

spection just in time to take part in the defence of 
the trench, was suffering from abraded knuckles, 
due to an encounter with a set of Teutonic teeth. 
Otherwise, none of our particular friends had re- 
ceived a scratch, though Boone and Gogarty had 
escaped their own artillery barrage by four seconds. 

An hour later the life of the line had reverted 
once more from Hell to Monotony. A working- 
party was out in front, repairing wire and replacing 
sandbags. Patrols were out again, in case the enemy 
should feel disposed to throw good money after 
bad. The artillery stood to, prepared to resume 
the argument if need be. But not a German gun 
cheeped all night. Possibly they were siu-prised 
about something. 

Meanwhile a string of prisoners was filing back 
to Regimental Headquarters, down a communi- 
cation-trench — or hoyau, to employ the expres- 
sive phrase of its Gallic constructors — muddy, di- 
shevelled, and sulky. German prisoners in these 
days are not usually sulky: most of them are 
frankly delighted to be counted out of the War. 
But this particular consignment were distin- 
guished, under their grime, by a certain peculiar 
and awful air of outraged majesty. 

On arrival at Headquarters the mystery was 
revealed. An American Staff Officer, an expert 
linguist, took charge of the party, and issued the 
usual orders. 

''Sergeant, find out if there are any officers among 
them, and put them by themselves. Then search 
the others.'' 



AN EXCURSION 163 

He was answered — in tolerable English — by 
a lanky youth who stood at the end of the long line 
of prisoners. 

''We are all officers!'' he announced, with dig- 
nity. 

It was a simple enough explanation, really. This 
was no common or vulgar raiding-party. It was a 
junior officers' Instruction Class, sent over to gain 
a little experience and confidence in the delicate 
art of trench-raiding on this ''quiet sector of the 
line." It was a genuine and painful shock to them 
to find that the line was held by the Americans 
in force — the Americans, who, according to the 
Great General Staff at Headquarters, were still 
at home, chasing buffaloes down Broadway. Too 
bad! 

But already these small diversions are swept 
into the limbo of the Things that do not Matter. 
Word has just come that our period of trench war- 
fare is over, and that we are to proceed to the 
Argonne, to take part in the Great Offensive. 

Evidently some one at the top has decided that 
this War has gone on long enough. 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

THE FOKEST OF THE ARGONNE 

During the past fortnight we have been learning 
the difference between Warfare of Position and 
Warfare of Movement, and we are very, very tired. 
Moreover, the end of our labour is not yet. But 
we have made good. The Divisional General him- 
self has informed us of the fact, in an official Order. 
So has the enemy, in an even more flattering fash- 
ion. He has fallen back — steadily and stubbornly 
— but back. 

The fighting began more than a fortnight ago. 
But first of all we had to get to the scene of action. 
That involved endless marches, through undulat- 
ing, heavily wooded, exhausting country. It is the 
fall of the year. Rain is abundant, roads are not 
too numerous, and these are packed from end to 
end with traffic so close that it is sometimes im- 
possible for a vehicle to find turning-space in ten 
miles. 

These roads, though well constructed and con- 
stantly reenforced, are none too good. They were 
never built to carry such traffic as this, and since 
the inevitable ditch on either side deprives them 
of lateral support, the effect of a constant stream 
of monstrously heavy vehicles upon the surface of 
one of them is that of a rolling-pin upon a strip of 
dough — it makes it wider. Not only wider, but 
thinner; for the edges of the road are squeezed out 



THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE 165 

into the ditch, and the whole fabric loses cohesion. 
Almost anywhere, but in particular near the sides, 
a wheel is apt suddenly to find a soft spot and sink 
up to the axle, with consequent congestion and 
tumult. 

It is a double tide of traffic. Both streams are 
made up of similar constituents, with certain 
necessary contrasts. There are bodies of infantry, 
either going up into action or else coming out. 
There is no mistaking the latter. Their uniforms 
are splashed, their faces are caked, and their eyes 
are red for lack of sleep. They are obviously ''all 
in,'' but they hobble manfully along, with the com- 
fortable satisfaction of men who have left behind 
them a task well and truly performed. They ex- 
change ironic greetings with the full-fed, boisterous 
bands of adventurers whom they encounter hasten- 
ing in the opposite direction. 

Ambulances, again. Those going forward are 
empty and trim : those returning are travel-stained 
and crowded. It is rumoured that the American 
Army has suffered over a hundred thousand cas- 
ualties during the past few weeks. The fighting in 
the Argonne Forest has been terrific. Grandpre, 
through which we expect to pass, has been taken 
and lost half a dozen times. Each of the ambulances 
carries a full complement of stretcher-cases; and 
usually beside the driver sits a gaunt, miry statue 
with his arm in a sling, or a blood-soaked rag about 
his head. Occasionally, too, there occurs a civiUan 
farm-wagon, containing a dozen or so less serious 
cases, with tickets tied to their buttons, on their 



166 THE LAST MILLION 

way to an Evacuation Station. There are also 
women and children passengers; for the battle 
zone is extending daily, and it is needful, from 
sheer humanity, to remove the civil population to 
safer ground. On the box-seat of one of these wag- 
ons sits a small French boy. Perhaps he is eight 
years old. He is easily the proudest and happiest 
person in all this dolorous procession, for his right 
wrist is swathed in a slightly encrimsoned bandage, 
gloriously conspicuous. 

Then there are motor wagons, also full. Those 
going up contain ammunition, barbed wire, gal- 
vanized iron sheeting, engineering material, or 
rations. Those returning are heaped with salvage 
of every kind — furniture, the property of the refu- 
gees; battlefield debris, and, wherever an available 
chink presents itself, men — footsore men, strag- 
glers, or regular working-parties. The latter are 
usually coloured, and, with steel helmets balanced 
at every angle upon their woolly pates, smile upon 
the seething activity beneath them with the simple 
enjoyment of a child at its first circus. 

These wagons — or camions — are of two types. 
There are big Thorneycroft lorries, holding three 
tons and made in England, and smaller vehicles of 
American design, known as ''Quads." These pos- 
sess the unusual feature of a drive upon either axle; 
so that if your rear wheels slip backwards into a 
ditch or quagmire, your front wheels will continue 
to function and will extricate you in no time. 
Heaven knows how these contraptions are steered, 
but steered they are, and with remarkable skill. 



THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE 167 

Then there are guns — and more guns. These 
are mainly French seventy-fives and hundred-and- 
fifty-fives, with American gun teams. Those going 
up are workmanhke, but inconspicuous. They are 
newly painted with the usual red, green, and yellow 
splashes. The fishing-nets which will be spread 
above them when they get into action, intersticed 
with grass, leaves, and twigs, are at present neatly 
furled and lashed along the barrels. The gunners 
sprawl anywhere but upon their hard little iron 
seats. The guns coming out look different. All are 
plastered with mud; some are on the casualty list, 
and are being towed upon trolleys by fussy little 
traction engines. 

Here and there in the procession wallow British 
tanks. These are either ''Heavies," weighing nearly 
thirty tons and carrying a crew of seven or eight, 
or ''Whippets," which only require three men and 
can move at the rate of twelve miles an hour. 

The tank is the humourist of this unhumorous 
War. Its method of joining a close-packed proces- 
sion of road traffic is characteristic. It appears 
suddenly out of a wood in a field beside the road, 
obliterates thirty yards of a hedge, squeezes a 
ditch flat, and insinuates itself sideways, with 
jolly abandon, into that part of the procession 
which happens to be passing at the moment — the 
whole in a manner reminiscent of that heavy- 
footed and determined individual who is accus- 
tomed by similar tactics to secure for himself a 
good place in the queue outside a movie pay-box. 
On the other hand, should you be ditched or dis- 



168 THE LAST MILLION 

abled in any way, to your own discomfort and the 
congestion of traffic, a tank is always willing to 
swing good-humouredly out of the line, scramble 
across country for a field or so, lurch heavily into 
the roadway again, harness itself to a tow-rope, 
and extract you from your present predicament as 
easily and as suddenly as a mastodon might extract 
a cork from a bottle. 

Certainly our march gave us a comprehensive 
view of the ingredients of modern warfare. Ameri- 
can soldiers, white and black — mostly cheerful; 
French refugees — all sad. Guns, limbers, camions, 
carts, ambulances, tanks — all moving in an end- 
less, tumultuous, profane stream. At cross-roads, 
traffic policeman struggling manfully with an im- 
possible job. Automobiles everj^-here — Cadillacs, 
Fords, and Dodges — all trying to make openings 
and steal a march upon the rest of Creation. Above 
us, the sky of France, weeping for her lost children. 
Around us, the undulating, rain-blurred hillsides 
of the Argorne Forest. Beneath our feet, Mud, 
Mud, Mud. 

Day after day we tramped — through Toul, the 
northwest corner of the great rectangle of French 
soil which has been an American military colony 
since the summer of nineteen-seventeen; across 
the trench lines of the old days of stationary war- 
fare, where Frenchmen faced the Boches for three 
long years. American troops have fought there too. 
Here, in what was once No Man's Land, stand 
the ruins of Seicheprey, famed as having been 
the scene of the first clash between American and 



THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE 169 

German troops. (It was a raid, and we lost our 
first prisoners there. Well, we have plenty of Ger- 
mans now to barter for them, when the time comes 
— and then some!) Then on past Montfaucon, the 
Crown Prince's headquarters at the Battle of 
Verdun, now an American stronghold; through 
miles and miles of devastated country, with here 
and there a little American graveyard (to which 
we pay due reverence), to Grandpre. This is a mere 
fragment of a village, cHnging to the face of a rock 
looking south, and is shelled out of recognition. 
Then on, through the Bois des Loges, following the 
tide of victory northward, towards Mezieres and 
Sedan. Somewhere to our right lies Verdun, gar- 
risoned by American soldiers — all, that is, save 
the Citadel, a wondrous Gibraltar dug into the 
interior of a hill, containing miles of illuminated 
passageways; barracks, a bakery, an arsenal, a 
chapel, a theatre. Here the French maintain their 
own garrison — and maybe their own secrets. 
Secrets or no, it was that Citadel and that garrison 
which broke the back of the German assault in the 
critical days of nineteen-sixteen. 

Somewhere on our left marches the Army of the 
French General Gouraud, keeping pace with our 
own in the great enveloping movement of which 
our attack forms the extreme right. 

And there we were sent into the battle. It being 
our first, our impressions are somewhat confused. 
In theory, our own particular part in the enterprise 
was a simple one. A wood lay upon our front, and 



170 THE LAST MILLION 

we were ordered to capture it. And we did so 
— all save the far edge. But at a price. When our 
barrage lifted in the early dawn, and we dashed 
forward to the assault which we had rehearsed 
so often, our consciousness was mainly of barbed 
wire and machine-gun bullets. These were in un- 
holy alliance everywhere, and took grievous toll. 
Buck Stamper, the biggest man in the Battalion, 
was the first one to go down. He was shot in the 
legs, and another bullet passed through his heart 
as he struggled forward, crippled but game, on his 
hands and knees. But a hundred men had seen him 
die, and the gun which had knocked him out was 
in their hands three minutes later. Still, formations 
were broken up, communication with the rear was 
cut, and the brunt of the battle began to fall upon 
the individual. Now it is as an individual fighter 
that the American soldier excels. He has his faults. 
To-day attacks have to be carefully rehearsed; 
battles are fought on a strict time-table. The eager 
young fighter is too apt to jump off the mark before 
the signal is given, and overrun his objective when 
he reaches it. This gets him into trouble with his 
best friend, the Gunner; for under these circum- 
stances the latter must either forbear to fire or else 
risk hitting his own Infantry. But it is a fault on 
the right side, and is soon corrected by painful 
experience. On the other hand, it develops in its 
owner that most priceless quality of the soldier, 
initiative. Some of the finest work in this War has 
been accomplished by small bodies of troops — 
particularly British and American — working for- 



THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE 171 

ward under a young officer, or a sergeant, or very 
often under no leader at all, to the capture of some 
vital point long after they have lost touch with the 
directing force behind. 

The upshot of it all was that after a week of 
hand-to-hand fighting and bloody murder we 
cleared the tenacious Hun right out of the wood — 
at this point more than a mile thick — leaving him 
possessed of nothing but the far edge. We are ter- 
ribly exhausted, and our losses do not bear thinking 
of; but we have begged, before we are withdrawn, 
to be permitted to capture that far edge and con- 
solidate the whole position. Our prayer has been 
granted. We attack to-morrow, refreshed by a lull 
of four days. 

'^And," observed Colonel Graham to his assem- 
bled officers, "ii we Americans on the right can 
do our part, and swing our horn of the line clear 
around through Metz and Sedan, we shall have the 
whole German Army in a pocket. And then — 
may the Lord have mercy on them, for we will 
not!'' 

Colonel Graham is a comparatively new arrival 
among us, but we are children in his sight when 
it comes to experience of actual fighting. Our own 
commander has gone home sick, and Colonel 
Graham reigns in his stead. He is a regular of the 
old school. Soldiering is the breath of his nostrils, 
and the Army is his father and mother. He has 
been over here more than twelve months, and has 
seen much service with our Allies farther north. 



172 THE LAST MILLION 

Behold him in his headquarters, lately the prop- 
erty of some German gentlemen compelled for 
business reasons to move farther east — thick-set, 
hard as nails, and twinkling humorously through 
his spectacles upon his battle-stained disciples. 
Most of our friends are present — but not all. 
Jim Nichols is there; so is Major Floyd, who has no 
particular call to be there at all, for we are within 
a few hundred yards of the German front line, and 
we are to attack at dawn. It is now nearly four 
o'clock in the morning. 

Another transient visitor is present — a young 
officer of the Air Service, by name Harvey Blane. 
His present duty is to maintain connection between 
the forces on the ground and the forces of the air. 
He has come into the line to-night in order to in- 
form the Colonel of the arrangements concluded 
between the Artillery and the aeroplanes for the 
protection of the Infantry in the coming attack. 
Aviators do not vary much as a class. They are all 
incredibly young; they are all endowed with the 
undefinable but clear-cut individuality which comes 
to earth-dwellers who have learned to maintain 
themselves in some other element — sailors possess 
it in similar degree — and they are all intensely 
reticent in the presence of laymen about their ex- 
periences in the air. Such an one was young Harvey 
Blane. 

There was a full muster of officers in the crowded 
dugout, for the Colonel was outlining the morrow's 
operations, and pencils were busy. But Major 
Powers, that wise and kindly Ulysses, was not 



THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE 173 

there. He was lying in one of a cluster of newly made 
American graves at the back of the wood which 
he had helped to capture. 
Neither was Boone Cruttenden. 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 

The Colonel was speaking. 

''Now listen to what the Intelligence Report has 
to say about the enemy's defensive arrangements. 

^^The road leading into the Wood on the west side 
is said to he furnished with tank traps. Well, we 
don't have any tanks to-day, so we should worry 
about that. (By the way, boys, remind me to tell 
you a story afterwards about a tank.) All indica- 
tions point to the fact that the enemy battalion occupy- 
ing the north side of Lapin Wood — that's where we 
are now — has received orders to hold the position to 
the last. Well, the last will come, we hope, about 
five-fifteen this morning. When dislodged, it is prob- 
able that the enemy will fall back nearly two kilome- 
tres, in order to occupy prepared positions on a newly 
constructed line south of the village of Ventreuil. That 
need not worry us, because we shall be relieved as 
soon as we fire him out of here. . . . Now for ma- 
chine guns! Nine machine guns have been located 
between points A and B on the northern edge of Lapin 
Wood — that is delightful — distributed as follows 
— Company Officers, get these down on your 
maps. . . . Wire. H'm-m-m! Three lines interwoven 
in the trees on north side of wood, at distance of three 
metres. Well, wire is the business of the Trench 
Mortar folks. Trenches. Enemy's fire-trenches are 
situated along northern edge of wood. We have no- 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 175 

ticed them ! Elements of trenches are visible on open 
ground behind, at points . . . Take this down, please. 
. . . Miscellaneous. Bois des Loups. Flashes have 
been observed in this wood. They certainly have! 
Careful observation of the angle of fall and sound- 
ranging reports lead to the conclusion that there are at 
least three batteries of Seventy-sevens there, together 
with two or three heavy mortars. Well, I guess our 
Artillery will take care of that.'' 

The Colonel looked up from the Report and 
wiped his spectacles, which had grown dim in the 
humid atmosphere of the dugout. 

''Machine guns will be our chief snag, I guess," 
he observed. ''Talking of machine guns, just how 
badly was Boone Cruttenden hit last week?" 

"Shrapnel in the right shoulder, sir," replied 
Jim Nichols. "Not very serious, I believe." 

"He was gotten away all right, I hope?" 

"Yes. His own men brought him back." 

"He did a fine piece of work," said the Colonel. 
"But I want the names of all concerned, for citation. 
How did Boone and his bunch manage to get into 
that machine-gun nest at all? I have had no time 
to go through the official report yet. Did he creep 
around behind and catch them napping, or what?" 

"Partly that, sir. But what helped most was the 
action of a single enlisted man. We were lying in 
a belt of trees. A clearing lay between us and the 
German line, which was less than two hundred 
yards away. The machine-gim nest was on our left 
front, and commanded the clearing." 

"Yes, yes, I get that. Go on!" 



176 THE LAST MILLION 

''Boone and his party/' continued Jim, ''had 
been gone about twenty minutes on their detour 
through the undergrowth which was to cut out this 
nest. We were lying along the edge of the clearing, 
ready to make a supporting bayonet rush if Boone 
got in among them. At what I thought was the 
right moment I passed the word down the line for 
the men to be ready. And then — and then — '' 

"Well?" 

"And then, sir, the darndest thing you ever 
saw!" proclaimed Jim, breaking away from strict 
technicalities in his emotion. "One of my men 
jumped suddenly to his feet and charged out into 
the middle of the clearing. He had a little flag — 
our flag — on the end of his bayonet, and he acted 
like he was stark insane." 

"Who was the man?" 

"His name was Smithers. Miss Sissy Smithers, 
the boys called him. He was a sissy, in his ways, 
usually." 

"And what did he do?" 

"He stood there shouting to the enemy to come 
out and fight. He yelled, — ' I see you, you Dutch- 
men! You Squareheads! You Slobs! Look at me! 
Look at this U'l old Flag! Fire on that if you dare!' 
Then he held his rifle up high, with the Stars and 
Stripes on the end of it." 

There ran a sudden thrill around the crowded 
table. The American venerates his Flag in a fashion 
hardly comprehended by the EngUshman. Every 
nation must worship some totem. In the English- 
man this impulse finds vent in loyalty to the Crown. 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 177 

We love the Union Jack, and we salute it upon 
state occasions. But we take off our hats to the 
King, and pray God to save him, because he stands 
for a tradition that goes right back a thousand 
years and more. The American pins everything — 
national honor, national tradition, personal loyalty, 
everything — to Old Glory. 

^^Well?" enquired the Colonel — presently. 

^^For a moment," pursued Nichols, ''the enemy 
did nothing. He was kind of paralyzed, I guess. 
Then the machine guns in that nest spoke up, and 
poor Smithers went down. Even then he was only 
hit in the legs. He sat up, and waved his flag again. 
Then they got him in the body, and he fell on his 
back. But he managed to keep his rifle erect for 
another fifteen seconds or so. He shouted, too, as 
he lay — calling them cowards, and daring them 
to come and take the Flag. By that time the guns 
were trained right on him, and — he passed out. 
But" — Nicholses voice rose again exultantly — 
'Hhey had been so busy trying to fix poor Sissy 
that they never thought to look around behind 
them; and right then Boone and his bunch jumped 
in on their necks, and the nest was out of business 
for keeps! We went across with the supporting 
party and helped them clean up. Turned their own 
machine guns on them too, until a German field 
battery got to work on us." 

'T suppose that was when you got most of your 
casualties?" said the Colonel. 

''Yes, sir. Two men killed, besides Smithers, and 
Boone and seven others wounded. The men were all 



178 THE LAST MILLION 

fine. After the shelling died down at dusk, and we 
were settling into our new positions, two or three 
Huns who knew a little English started to josh us; 
explained how they were coming over presently to 
turn us out, and beat us up, and show themselves 
a time generally. Finally one of our men, called 
McCarthy, pushed his head over the sandbags, and 
yelled: ^Aw, what's the use of pulling that stuff? 
Is this a War, or a Chautauqua? ' That fixed them. 
I guess McCarthy had stepped right outside their 
vocabulary!'' 

''Great boys, great boys!" chuckled the Colonel. 
''They were just the same on the Hindenburg 
Line." He turned to Floyd. " Our idioms there puz- 
zled some of our British friends. Major. But be- 
tween us we got the goods on old man Hindenburg, 
I fancy." 

"I have heard rumours to that effect. Colonel," 
replied Floyd. "The cooperation was pretty good, 
eh?" 

"It was great," said the Colonel. "French, Brit- 
ish, or American, it did not seem to matter who 
was in command. We all kept touch, and we all 
made our objectives. And team-work! Here is a 
letter I received from an Australian commander 
under whom we worked for quite a while. He was 
a busy man, but he found time to write me this." 

The Colonel produced a frayed field-despatch 
from the breast pocket of his tunic, and read : 

I desire to take the opportunity of tendering to you, as 
their immediate commander, my earnest thanks for the 
assistance and service of the four companies of Infantry 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 179 

who participated in yesterday^s hrilliant operations. The 
dash, gallantry, and efficiency of these American troops 
left nothing to be desired, and my Australian soldiers speak 
in the very highest terms in praise of them. 

''There is some more," added the Colonel, "but 
that will be sufficient to show you what that Gen- 
eral thought of my boys. The Australians have a 
pretty high standard of their own, and they don't 
pin orchids on other people unnecessarily. So we 
appreciated this.'' He tapped the despatch. ''The 
fact is, we were a band of brothers. The only occa- 
sion upon which we indulged in anything like cere- 
mony or company manners was on the Fourteenth 
of July. (Corresponds to our Fourth.) I went along 
with a few others to represent the Americans at a 
swell lunch which was to be given in the Town Hall 
of Amiens in honor of the occasion. Amiens was 
under shell-fire at the time — right in view of the 
enemy, who were up on the high ground back of 
Villers Brettoneux, not ten miles away. But no one 
worried. We had our lunch in a cellar — French, 
British, AustraUan, and American officers. Some 
lunch! There were flowers on the table, too. Flow- 
ers ! God knows where they came from. But that 's 
France — just France! They had to have them! 
Speeches, too, by Senators from Paris. Speeches, 
with German shells bursting in the street outside ! 
They're a great nation!" 

"How did the British Tommy and the Dough- 
boy get along?" inquired Floyd. 

Colonel Graham's frosty eyes twinkled. 

"Each took a little while," he said, "to get the 



/ 



180 THE LAST MILLION 

combination of the other. You see, Major, we 
Americans consider ourselves the greatest nation 
on earth; and being Americans, we have to say so. 
Perhaps you have noticed that?'' 

'^I have,'' assented Floyd, ''and I have lived in 
America long enough to learn to like hearing you 
say so. I like the young American's passionate 
affection for his country and all her institutions, 
and his fixed determination to boost everything 
connected with her. The other day I was waiting 
in a village for an American Staff car which was 
being sent for me from Chaumont. I found one 
standing at the corner of the street, so I asked the 
chauffeur, thinking he might be from headquarters, 

— 'Where are you from?' And he sat up, and re- 
plied, all in one breath, as if I had pressed a button, 

— ' Sir, I am from Marion, Ohio, the Greatest 
Steam-Shovel Producing Centre in the World ! ' — 
Just like that. That is what I call the right spirit. 
But I am interrupting you. Colonel." 

"You British, on the other hand," resumed the 
Colonel, "also consider yourselves the greatest 
nation upon earth, but you do not say so to people, 
because you take it for granted that they know 
already!" 

"A palpable hit, sir!" conceded Floyd, amid 
laughter. 

"Well," continued the Colonel, "those two 
points of view required quite a little adjustment, 
in the first place. Then again, there was a certain 
amount of ' We-have-come-to-win-this- War-f or- 
you' stuff from our boys, and a certain amount 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 181 

of * You-have-been-a-darned-long-while-making-up 
your-minds-about-it ' stuff from yours; and all 
these little corners had to be rounded off. On top 
of that there was a lot of very insidious, very 
clever work by German agencies, to make trouble 
between them. But you know about that. Then, 
they suffered from the handicap of a common lan- 
guage. Believe me, it's a darned sight easier to 
keep on clubby terms with an ally whose language 
you don't know than an ally whose language you 
do! But they are wise to one another now. Each 
has learned to respect and tolerate the other's point 
of view. Of course they don't understand one 
another; and never will. In that respect they are 
three thousand miles and several centuries apart. 
So they tacitly agreed to regard one another as 
crazy, but likeable — and leave it at that. In my 
view that is about as far as Anglo-American senti- 
ment will ever get; and I shall be glad and satis- 
fied if we here, who know, can maintain it at that 
standard — and it's a higher standard than would 
appear at first sight. But I am talking too much. 
Where was I?" 

^^ You were going to tell us a story about a tank, 
sir," announced a respectful voice. 

^'Was I? Well, I might as well, for we can do 
nothing at this moment but wait. Up north, in 
September, my outfit were attacking day after day, 
with an escort of British tanks. The Germans were 
scared to death of those tanks. They did every- 
thing to stop them — brought up field guns to 
point-blank range; dug deep ditches, sprung land 



182 THE LAST MILLION 

mines, and everything. The tanks suffered; but 
they never weakened, and most of them arrived at 
their objective. Their crews were marvels, and as 
for the children who commanded them, they were 
the cunningest little things you ever saw. One day 
we were detailed to carry a village, lying just back 
of a wood. We got there in the course of time, rather 
more easily than I had expected. When our men 
reached the little market-square, the reason re- 
vealed itself, in the form of a British tank, squat- 
ting plumb in the centre, having beaten us to it 
by four minutes. The usual infant was in charge, 
sitting on the top and twirling the place where he 
hoped one day to raise a mustache. When he saw 
our senior Major doubling down the street at the 
head of our men, he scrambled down and saluted 
very smart and proper, and said: 'Major, I hereby 
hand over this village to you, as my superior officer, 
with cordial compliments, world without end, 
Amen! ' — or words to that effect. The Major sa- 
luted back, very polite, and thanked him. Then the 
child said, kind of thoughtfully, jerking his head 
towards the grinning Tommies who were peeking 
out of the inside of the machine: 'Still, we wish 
somehow, don't you know, that we had something 
to show — just to show, sir, that we were here first.' 
The Major thought a minute. Then he said, 'I can 
fix that for you. I'll give you a receipt for the vil- 
lage.' And he did!" concluded the Colonel, amid a 
rising tide of laughter: " Received from officer com- 
manding British Tanky 'Bing Boy^' one village — 
in poor condition J ^ 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 183 

A salvo of German five-point-nine shells deto- 
nated amid the tree-roots far above their heads. 

^' Enemy getting nervous/' commented the 
Colonel. ''Let him wait! Our artillery preparation 
is n't due for an hour or more. Now, do you boys 
imderstand your orders? Any questions to ask? 
If so, shoot! That's what I'm here for." 

He answered one or two eleventh-hour inquiries, 
and added: ''Make the most of this attack. You 
may not have another opportunity." 

"You mean," suggested Floyd, "that this battle 
is going to peter out?" 

"I mean," replied Colonel Graham deliber- 
ately, "that this war is going to peter out! And," 
he added, with sudden concentrated bitterness, 
"if it does — now — we Americans are going to 
regret it for the rest of our history!" 

The figures round the table sat up — quite liter- 
ally. But one or two of the older men nodded their 
heads. 

" If only we could be allowed to go on for another 
three months!" pursued the Colonel earnestly. 
"If only this great beautiful machine of an Ameri- 
can Army could be given a chance to climb to its 
top speed! Then we should be functioning in proper 
shape — with our own guns, and our own tanks, 
plenty of horse-transport, and sufficient airplanes 
to direct our own fire and locate the enemy's. We 
should be employing acquired experience instead 
of borrowed experience. We should have a trained 
Staff. We could send these great-hearted boys of 
ours into action adequately protected by a per- 



184 THE LAST MILLION 

fectly timed barrage. We could cut down our 
casualties seventy-five per cent, and make futiu-e 
victories a real matter for rejoicing. Of course it 
won't matter to the folks at home. They have 
no opportunity to discriminate. They would cheer 
themselves hoarse over us if we were a Sanitary 
Section from the Base. But — we should like to 
show our friends over here what the American Army 
really is and not merely what it is going to be. 
And — we could extract some sort of adequate in- 
terest from the capital — the capital of our men's 
Hves — that we have been sinking in this year's 
campaign. But there is n't time! There is n't time!" 
The old soldier's gnarled fist dropped despairingly 
upon the trestle table. ''We are still on our second 
speed, and however hard we may step on the gas, 
we can't get real results for a little while to come. 
There is n't time!" 

There was a pause, while another salvo burst 
overhead. Then Jim Nichols asked: — 

^'Colonel, just why are you so sure? Is Peace 
really on the way?" 

(Certainly, the question was worth asking. 
Within the past five days the following rumours 
have reached us, seriatim, supported by every 
variety of unreliable testimony : — 

(1) Austria is trying to quit. 

(2) The German Fleet has come out and sur- 
rendered. 

(3) Kiel is in the hands of mutineers. 

(4) The Kaiser and the Crown Prince have 
abdicated. 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 185 

(5) Germany has asked for Peace, and Foch has 
given her seventy-two hours to accept his terms.) 

^'Not peace," repHed the Colonel, ''nor anything 
like it. But an armistice may come any day. From 
all accounts the Hun is willing to submit to almost 
any terms so long as he can get out now, while the 
going is any good at all. That looks as if his military 
discipline were growing shaky — or else his civil- 
ian morale. Perhaps both. Anyway, he seems sus- 
piciously anxious to quit. The real question is. 
What are we going to do about it?" 

^T fancy we are going to accede to his request," 
said Floyd. 'Tn all probability, if we hammered 
him for another six weeks or so, we should have 
him in such a state that only a vacuum-cleaner 
could clear up the mess. We should probably take 
a million prisoners. We could sit down upon the 
Boche's prostrate carcass and dictate any terms 
we pleased. But — but — but — well, there might 
be a miscarriage. We might find ourselves com- 
mitted to another year's campaigning. Labour, so- 
called, is getting fed up, and, though we are driving 
the Huns before us like sheep, an avoidable casu- 
alty-list might produce a crisis in that quarter. 
As you say. Colonel, the big American machine is 
running more smoothly and powerfully every day; 
but France and Britain are down to a pretty fine 
edge now." 

''But your men and the French are all veterans, 
Major," exclaimed Jim Nichols: "the finest 
material — " 

"That is just the trouble," said Floyd, shaking 



186 THE LAST MILLION 

his head. '4n this crazy war veterans are no use. 
To-day experience simply means loss of nerve. 
The most effective — the only effective — troops 
in this kind of warfare are young, green, ignorant 
recruits, and the British and French have precious 
few of that type left. They all know too much now! 
Moreover, the people at home are suffering badly. 
They have not too much to eat, and the casualty- 
list is approaching the three-million mark. They 
are not kicking: they are prepared to go on for 
another twenty years if national security demands 
it: but it is the sacrifice of the last few lives in a 
war at which national conscience boggles, and I 
fancy that if our statesmen see a chance of a vic- 
torious peace they will grab it." 

''I am afraid you are right. Major," sighed the 
Colonel. ^' Looks as if we were going to weaken on 
the proposition of the knock-out blow. If we do, 
two things are going to happen. First, hundreds 
and thousands of American boys over at home are 
going to break their hearts. Think of it! Months 
and months of hard training and feverish anticipa- 
tion in those big dreary camps. Then — on their 
top note of anticipation — Peace ! Demobilization ! 
Reaction ! Instead of soldiers — and remember the 
title 'soldier' is the proudest in the world! — with 
a record of duty done and victory achieved, we 
shall have created a few million disgruntled, 
unemployed, unemployable might-have-beens — 
robbed, robbed, of their fair share in the greatest 
Adventure that life can offer!" 

''Still," rejoined Floyd, "you can honestly tell 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 187 

them this : When the credit for the victories of this 
summer comes to be apportioned, a big share must 
go to troops which have never set foot in France — 
which have never even had the chance to leave 
America: because it was the promise of their pres- 
ence that enabled Foch to take the offensive right 
away — to take chances, in fact, which would have 
been utterly impossible if he had not known that he 
had the whole trained manhood of America behind 
him. So their labour was not altogether in vain, you 
see!" 

But the old war-horse refused to be comforted. 

^^We ought to go on, Major," he said doggedly. 
^'That brings me to the other thing I said was 
going to happen. America, as a whole, has not yet 
felt this War : and she must, if she is to extract from 
it the benefit that belongs to her by right. What 
are a quarter of a million casualties to a nation the 
size of ours? We ought to suffer some more, if only 
to save us from unreadiness and mismanagement 
in the future. If we stop now, all that we shall have 
won will be the opportunity — and you know how 
our orators and patriotism-mongers will use it — 
to announce that America just stepped in, and the 
War was won! It may be true; it may not; but that 
line of talk never did any good to any nation. We 
here round this table all know that, and there are 
thousands of folk at home who know it too. Yes, we 
ought to get deeper in. God knows, no one wants 
to make widows and orphans. But a war, however 
bloody, which teaches a nation its own weaknesses, 
is worth while. Individuals suffer, as individuals 



188 THE LAST MILLION 

must and do; but the commonwealth gains. It is 
true we are losing good Americans by the hundred 
to-day; but we are making thousands more. Listen. 
A few weeks ago I was in a Field Dressing-Station, 
talking to the woimded. One man replied to my 
enquiries in a strong foreign accent. He was a 
splendid-looking boy — a Dane, I guess. I asked 
him: 'What nationality are you?' He looked just 
the least bit surprised, and replied: 'American, 
sure!' I said: 'I can see that, son: but tell me, what 
made you an American? ' And he laid his hand on 
a great whale of a wound in his side, and he said, 
quite simply : ' That made me an American ! ' And 
that is what this War is doing for our big, beloved, 
half -grown country — making Americans! And 
now we've got to quit!" 

''Still," smiled Floyd, "you have made a good 
many. You have a couple of million of them over 
here now, and they will form a very useful leaven 
when they get home again. He is a great man, your 
Doughboy, Colonel. I have been privileged to make 
his acquaintance, and I have seen him fight : and I 
take off my tin hat to him, because I know what his 
difficulties have been. When he gets home he will 
no doubt be smothered in praise — by people inca- 
pable of discriminating between the easy and the 
difficult things that he did. But he will deserve all 
that he gets, and more, on account of the difficulties 
he overcame which people at home know nothing 
about — the things that never get into the papers." 

There was a sympathetic murmur from the com- 
pany. The Colonel nodded. 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 189 

''You are right, Major," he said cheerfully. 
''Meanwhile, I wish to report that I feel much 
better. I needed that outburst badly. Moreover, 
I don't say that I have any particular personal 
objection to a spell of Peace. I guess we can all do 
with a vacation. How will you celebrate your first 

day. Major? " 

"I don't know," replied Floyd thoughtfully. 
"The idea of Peace does not particularly appeal to 
me in my present frame of mind. More than three 
quarters of a million of my fellow-countrymen 
have been killed during the past four years — 
most of them in their early twenties — and at my 
time of life I feel ahnost ashamed to be alive. And 
the idea of ^settling down' does not altogether 
attract me, either. As you veiy rightly observe. 
Colonel, the community may benefit by a good 
searching war, but, by God! individuals suffer 
Especially if they happen to be of that misgmded 
type which hastens to get into the scrap first, while 
wiser persons are deciding whether to volunteer or 
be fetched. That was when I lost my friends — in 
nineteen-fourteen and fifteen. That stratum of our 
community has almost ceased to exist. My own 
Battalion has been replaced — which means wiped 
out — thirteen times in four years, and I, even I, 
only am left. So I view the prospect of settling 
down with mixed feelings. Tell us how you propose 
to spend the first day of the Armistice, Colonel — 
when it comes ! " 

"I?" said the Colonel. 'T shall start by sending 

a cable to the best little woman in America, in a 



190 THE LAST MILLION 

little town in Tennessee that you never heard of, 
Major; telling her that I have come through, and 
that she and the bunch of marauders that belong 
to both of us — we have two boys and two girls — 
can quit worrying. Then I shall sit down and am- 
plify my sentiments in a letter. But I am old and 
sentimental. What will you do, Jim Nichols? '^ 

'T guess I'll muster the Battalion,^' replied the 
newly promoted and zealous second in command, 
''and have them clean up their rifles and equip- 
ment. They're in a terrible mess, after the time 
weVe been having." 

"Well, well! We'll try some one less wedded to 
his duty!" laughed the Colonel. ''What will you 
do, boy?" He turned to the youthful aviator. 

Master Harvey Blane meditated. He had twice 
been wounded, once brought down in flames, and 
several times driven down out of control. 

"I guess," he said at last, 'T shall go along down 
to the airdrome, and order out my machine, and 
have the boys tune her up very carefully. Then I 
shall have her wheeled out, and I shall climb on 
board and test all the contacts. Then I shall run the 
engine for a spell, and maybe take a turn around 
the airdrome, along the ground. Then I shall load 
up with bombs. Then I shall look up in the sky, 
and say: 'Boys, I don't think after all I feel like 
going out to-day. Run her back and put her to 
bed!'" 

There was appreciative laughter at this, and 
Floyd said: 

"That reminds me of an English subaltern of my 



THE ELEVENTH HOUR 191 

acquaintance who came home for a week's leave 
after four continuous months in the SaUent, in 
nineteen-fifteen — and after that experience one 
required a Httle leave! He took a room at the Savoy 
and left certain explicit instructions with the night 
clerk about the time he was to be called. In due 
course, at three o'clock in the morning, the tele- 
phone beside his bed rang, and our friend sat up 
and answered it. The voice of the clerk said: 
^Colonel's compliments, sir, and he wants you in 
the firing-trench immediately.' And the child 
replied : ' Give my compliments to the Colonel, and 
request him to go to Hell ! ' Then he rolled over and 
slept till the afternoon. His real leave had begun! 
He was an artist like yourself, Blane!" 

As Floyd concluded this highly probable anec- 
dote, in his usual sepulchral tone, a signal orderly 
came down the steps that led to the regions above, 
and handed a despatch to the Adjutant. 

Colonel Graham glanced affectionately around 
the table. 

'T hope you boys will all be in a position soon to 
send me such a message!" he said. ^'But only for a 
week or two, mind! Leave, not Demobilization. 
We have n't finished the War yet." 

The Adjutant handed him the despatch. Colonel 
Graham adjusted his glasses, read it, and looked 
up. 

''Yes, we have," he said. ''The rumours were 
true. German delegates are to meet Allied dele- 
gates at five o'clock this morning, when the Allied 
terms will be dictated. Dictated ^ not discussed!" 



192 THE LAST MILLION 

He glanced at his wrist-watch. ''They are being 
dictated at this moment. Boys, we are through! 
For better or worse, we are through with this War! 
Countermand the attack.'^ 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

GALLIA VICTRIX 

Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris. 

This is an unsatisfactory world, and our desti- 
nies are not always controlled as we could wish. But 
occasionally — just once or twice, maybe, in a 
lifetime — something happens (or is arranged for 
us) which so utterly transcends our own dreams 
and deserts as to restore our faith in an All-Wise 
and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all. 

Frances Lane had been transferred to a military 
hospital in Paris. Here she discharged, cheerfully 
and efficiently, those minor and unheroic duties 
which the professional healer is accustomed to 
depute to the amateur. 

One morning, during the last week in October, 
she was called upon in the ordinary course of busi- 
ness to sit by the bedside of a young officer who had 
just been wheeled from the operating-room, until 
such time as he should ''come out of the ether.'' 
And the young officer was Boone Cruttenden. 
Hence the foregoing appreciative reference to the 
workings of Providence. 

Boone duly emerged from one form of oblivion 
to enter upon another, hardly less complete. In 
the first, he had been oblivious to everything. In 
the second, he was oblivious to everything and 
everybody save Frances. The malady proved 



194 ^ THE LAST MILLION 

catching, and both patients imagined, as usual, 
that their symptoms were undetected by the out- 
side world. So the War had to take care of itself 
for a while. 

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the 
eleventh month of the year nineteen-eighteen 
these twain found themselves wandering side by 
side — with Frances on the right, ferociously inter- 
posing her slim person between Boone's strapped 
and bandaged arm and the rest of humanity — 
through the congested Boulevards; waiting, wait- 
ing, like every one else, for Something Official to 
be announced. 

During the previous day tout Paris, in Sabbath 
attire, had roamed restlessly, silently, expectantly, 
about the streets. Night had fallen, and the throng 
had not abated. The great city was as murky as 
ever. Peace might be hovering in the air, but War 
precautions still prevailed on earth. Small, ghostly, 
electric lights, encased in dark-blue glass, still 
indicated rather than illuminated the wayfarer's 
path. At intervals a discreet, faintly luminous sign, 
bearing the legend Ahri, proffered a refuge from 
the terror that flies by night. Through this gross 
darkness, silently, furtively, the great concourse 
drifted and groped. Only over La Place de la Con- 
corde, like the promise of victorious Dawn, the sky 
was bright with the lights newly unveiled to illu- 
minate the great array of trophies — German guns, 
German aeroplanes, festoons of German helmets — 
set up for the advancement of the latest War Loan 



GALLIA VICTRIX 195 

— "The Loan of the Last Quarter of an Hour/' as 
the posters happily described it. 

On Monday morning the crowd was still there. 
It had contrived to sHp home and put on its work- 
ing-clothes, but that was all. The shops were open, 
but no one appeared to be buying anything. There 
was little sound. Occasionally the most unlikely- 
looking persons were accosted and asked, ''On a 
signed But it did not matter, as no one ever stayed 
for an answer. Paris was waiting. 

Then in a moment, about the stroke of eleven, 
the electric discharge came. Cries arose from vari- 
ous parts of the city. The newspaper offices and in- 
formation bureaux broke into simultaneous, pre- 
concerted animation. 

In the Boulevard des Italiens^ Boone and Frances, 
standing amid a vast throng facing the office of 
Le Matin, suddenly became aware, between two 
intervals of whispered confidences, that the huge 
map of the Western Front which covered the outer 
wall of the building, upon whose surface, through 
months of alternate agony and triumph, the ebb 
and flow of battle had been recorded by an undu- 
lating array of tiny flags, was being obliterated by 
a series of great printed slips, set one above an- 
other. The first of these had already been put in 
position. It said: 

L' ARMISTICE EST SIGNfiE! 

There came a buzz of excitement from the 
crowd, but little noise. The second slip was going 
up: — 



196 THE LAST MILLION 

LA GUERRE EST GAGNEE! 

"A-a-a-ah!'' Here was a new thought. '^ We have 
won — won! We have beaten him — beaten the 
Boche! Enfin!^^ Men and women began to grip one 
another's hands. The confused, uncertain buzzing 
rose higher, and the third slip went up : — 

VIVE LA FRANCE! 

That settled it. Next moment every hat was in^ 
the air. This was what everybody had been waiting 
for. Every French man, woman, and child was 
shouting, or crying, or embracing his neighbour. 
France! France! France — safe, free, victorious! 
France ! 

The last strip was unrolled : — 

VIVENT LES ALLIES! 

This time it was a different demonstration. 
Mingled with it were the enthusiastic cheers of 
the Parisian — the glowing, grateful tribute of the 
principal sufferer to the friends from all over the 
globe who had stood by her so stoutly. But in the 
main it was a deep, full-throated, Anglo-Saxon 
roar. In that crowd stood scores of British and 
hundreds of American soldiers. Higher and higher 
rose the cheering. They were not blind cheers. 
They were cheers of realization. A job of work well 
and truly completed! No more trenches! No more 
mud! No more Hell! No more death! Victory! 
Peace! Home! Sweethearts and Wives! 

It was at this point, for the first time, that 
Boone Cruttenden kissed Frances Lane. 



GALLIA VICTRIX 197 

Thereafter, a brief period of uncertainty; then 
Paris settled down to rejoice in earnest. 

It is not easy to rejoice suddenly — after four 
and a half years of stoical endurance. Still, by 
noon, Paris had settled down into her stride. The 
midinettes and ouvrieres had come out for their 
dinner-hour, and none manifested any intention of 
returning to their labours. In the balconies outside 
the great millinery shops of the Rue de la Paix 
lovely creatures in kimonos, of the mannequin 
tribe, forgetful of the whole duty of a mannequin, 
which is to languish and glide, were hanging far 
out over the seething street, waving, weeping, and 
screaming like common persons. 

The city had broken out into flags. Every win- 
dow sported one. Every person carried one. None 
of your miniature, buttonhole affairs; but a good, 
flapping tricolour, or Union Jack, or Stars and 
Stripes, three feet square, carried over the shoulder 
on a pole six feet long. 

Every one felt it incumbent upon him to show 
some slight civihty to his neighbour. Soldiers 
saluted civilians; civilians embraced soldiers. 
Young military gentlemen kissed young ladies of 
the dressmaking persuasion. Exuberant daughters 
of Gaul joined hands and danced in a ring round 
embarrassed Anglo-Saxon officers, or tweaked the 
tails of the Glengarry bonnets of passing ''Jocks." 
At each porte-cochere snuffy concierges were phleg- 
matically tearing down the printed signs tacked 
upon the outer doors — Ahri, 25 places — with an 
almost genial, ''Et voild!'' A spirit of brotherly love 



198 THE LAST MILLION 

prevailed: Boone and Frances saw a Paris taxi- 
driver distinctly slow down to avoid running over 
two young ladies whose cavaliers were playfully 
endeavouring to push them under his front wheels. 

Presently an aged man in a blue blouse and a 
species of yachting-cap accosted them. 

"Americainf^^ he demanded. 

^'Oui,^^ admitted Boone cautiously. He had 
already stalled off more than one would-be kisser. 

"Blesse!^' added Frances proudly. 

The old gentleman shook hands with both of 
them, several times. Tears were running down his 
cheeks. 

"Et maintenant,''^ he told them, ^^mon fits 
reviendra!^^ 

And he hobbled off, to spread the great news 
elsewhere. 

By the afternoon Paris had resolved itself into 
processions, mainly of soldiers and girls intertwined. 
Nearly everybody was singing. The French sang 
the Marseillaise, or Madelon. The English-speak- 
ing races devoted their energy, which was consid- 
erable, to a ditty with the mysterious refrain — 

Would you rather he a Colonel, with an eagle on your shoulder, 
Or a private, with a chicken on your knee ? 

Ordinary vehicular traffic had almost entirely 
removed itself from the streets — probably from 
the instinct of self-preservation; for the few taxis 
which still survived carried never less than fifteen 
passengers, mostly on the roof. But huge military 



GALLIA VICTRIX 199 

mo tor- trucks were ubiquitous. They were mainly 
British and American, but they bore a cargo com- 
pletely representative of the Franco-Italo-Anglo- 
American entente , from the impromptu jazz-band of 
some thirty artistes perched upon the canvas roof, 
to the quartette of Australian soldiers and their 
lady friends sitting astride the radiator, bob-sleigh 
fashion, and wearing one another's hats. It is need- 
less to add that small French boys adhered like 
flies to all the less accessible parts of the vehicle. 

As evening approached, and the electric arc- 
lamps awoke sizzling and sputtering from their 
enforced sleep of many gloomy months, one ques- 
tion began to exercise the collective faculties of the 
celebrants : — 

'^ Where shall we go to-night?" 

In most cases the answer was simple enough. At 
moments of intense mental exaltation the Anglo- 
Saxon in Paris turns to the Folies Bergeres as 
simply and spontaneously as your true Moslem 
turns towards Mecca at the call of the muezzin. 
But Boone and Frances cared for none of these 
things. 

''Listen, dear," said Boone. ''Let's go to some 
place that's quiet, where we can get by ourselves!" 

"That will be too lovely," agreed the other 
optimist, as she struggled panting through the 
press. "But where, darling?" 

"Well, anyway, some place where we won't meet 
any one we know," said Boone, with the first in- 
stinct of the newly affianced; and Frances con- 
curred. 



200 THE LAST MILLION 

After dinner, at a restaurant whose proprietor 
had exuberantly decided to celebrate the cessation 
of hostilities by trebling prices all round — a dinner 
at which purely private and domestic plans were 
raptly discussed amid an atmosphere of riotous 
publicity — they went to a revue. 

It was not the usual French wartime revue 
for Anglo-Saxon consumption — with syncopated 
melodies and Cockney chorus-girls, imperfectly 
disguised as Parisiennes. It was a revue intime, 
intended for Paris alone, and was full of delicate 
fancies, and esoteric jokes, and mysterious topical 
allusions. Boone and Frances understood possibly 
one third of the dialogue and one in a hundred of 
the allusions. But they enjoyed the revue exceed- 
ingly. In their present frame of mind they would 
have enjoyed a Greenwich Village mystery-play, 
or Hamlet without cuts. 

The audience was almost exclusively Parisian — 
officers in uniform; fair women wearing their jewels 
for the first time in months; stout, bald, bearded 
citizens of the bourgeoisie; here and there a British 
uniform. But so far as our own particular pair of 
truants could see, they were the only Americans 
present. 

From the boulevard outside came the muffled 
tramp of feet; shouts of triumph; coy feminine 
shrieks; the honking of motor-horns; the clink of 
cow-bells — all suggestive of New Year's Eve on 
Broadway. But inside the theatre the revue flowed 
smoothly on. No one on the stage made any allu- 
sion to the matter which was bursting all hearts. 



GALLIA VICTRIX 201 

Not that there was no tension, both on the stage 
and in the auditorium. In theatre-land it is an un- 
derstood thing that upon occasions of pubHc re- 
joicing the actors and the play take second place, 
while the audience, for one night only, steps into 
the spot-light and plays ''lead." For instance, at 
this moment, not many blocks away, upon the 
stage of the Fohes Bergeres a self-appointed band 
of khaki-clad enthusiasts were assisting a hysterical 
corps de ballet in the execution of its duty. 

But the revue intime pursued its intimate course. 
The piece was too delicately planned and executed 
to admit of unauthorized ''gags" or inartistic in- 
terpolations. The audience, being Parisian, realized 
this, and waited. A time would come. Meanwhile, 
they leaned back in their seats, fanned themselves, 
and laughed at the jokes. But the fans moved very 
rapidly, and the laughs sounded rather breathless 
— rather like sobs. 

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, at the end of the 
second act, came the cracking-point. 

The scene was laid in a restaurant. (Not that 
that mattered; a sewing-circle would have served 
equally well.) The glittering little company were 
already gathered upon the stage for the finale. 
They were headed by the leading lady — young, 
blonde, lovely; a shimmering vision in silver — 
prepared to burst into song. The orchestra gave 
her a preliminary chord; she opened her carmine 
lips. And then, to her entered from the wings, 
apparently without cue or authorization, the prin- 
cipal comedian, in the role of the head waiter of 



202 THE LAST MILLION 

the restaurant — preposterous weeping whiskers 
and all. 

He walked to the footlights, turned to the audi- 
ence, and announced, quite simply: — 

" U Armistice est signee!^' 

The thing came with such consummate unex- 
pectedness -r- the thing they had been expecting 
all evening — that for a moment no one stirred. 
Then, with a rush, the audience were on their feet; 
so were the orchestra. One long-drawn, triumphant 
electrifying chord sprang — apparently of its own 
volition — from their instruments, and a tremor 
ran through the theatre. The girl in silver stepped 
forward, and broke into the Marseillaise, with tears 
raining down her face. . . . 

''Name of a name of a name!" An old French 
colonel, standing beside Boone, was muttering 
brokenly to himself. Boone could see his finger- 
nails whiten as he grasped the back*of the seat in 
front of him. Boone contented himself with Fran- 
ces's hand, and together they gazed up at the 
singer. There she stood — slender, radiant, beau- 
tiful, with not too much on, shedding abundant, 
genuine tears over an artificial complexion. She 
was Paris — Paris personified — Paris unclothed 
and in her right mind — Paris come to her own 
again. 

The curtain fell — rose — fell — rose — while 
the storm of cheers raged. About the tenth time it 
rose again, to stay. The girl had both her hands 
pressed to her face, and her body was shaking. 
But another chord from the orchestra — the same 



GALLIA VICTRIX 203 

chord — steadied her. She dropped her hands by 
her sides, upHfted her limpid voice, and sang the 
Marseillaise once more. 

But this time her entourage had increased. Upon 
the outskirts of the stage — sidUng in from the 
wings, peeping round the proscenium, mingUng 
bodily with the glittering, shimmering company 
— there appeared another throng. Scene-shifters; 
dressers; lusty firemen; brown-faced poilus; gen- 
darmes; mysterious individuals in decayed dress- 
suits; little boys and girls, indicative of the fact 
that even revue artists contract domestic ties — 
they all edged on, and sang the Marseillaise too. 
If the girl in the centre was Paris, this shining, 
grimy, patient, cheerful, wistful, triumphant throng 
around her was France. France — with the black 
shadow of forty years rolled away from her horizon! 
France — the much-enduring, the all-surviving, the 
indomitable; with her beloved capital inviolate 
still, and her lost provinces coming back to her! 
Gallia Victrix. No wonder they sang. La Guerre 
est gagnee — at last ! 

There let us leave them all — on the crest of 
the wave. La Guerre est gagnee. God send that we 
tackle La Paix as successfully! 



THE END 



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